A temporal and geographical analysis of echolocation activity can give insights into the behaviour of free-ranging harbour porpoises Phocoena phocoena. Seasonal and diel patterns in the presence and foraging activity of harbour porpoises were investigated based on a year-long passive acoustic monitoring data set recorded at 5 sites in the western Baltic Sea. Diel patterns in detection rates were found at 4 sites. A year-round rhythm in presence, however, was found at only 1 station, whereas the other 3 stations showed diel rhythms for 2 to 3 seasons. Three of the sites showed diel patterns in foraging sequences on a seasonal level, but no station showed such patterns for the complete year of investigation. Both diurnal and nocturnal patterns in harbour porpoise detections were observed, indicating that diel rhythmic behaviour is more complex than previously reported. In contrast, foraging behaviour showed only nocturnal rhythms. Owing to the limitations in passive acoustic monitoring, all categorized foraging sequences are a minimum estimate. Therefore, classified foraging sequences are most likely pelagic foraging, while bottom grubbing could have been missed. Differences in the occurrence of foraging sequences between station, season and time of day lead to the assumption that the long-term echolocation diel patterns of porpoises strongly depend on the temporal changes in food availability and composition within a certain habitat. Echolocation behaviour of foraging porpoises is strongly influenced by seasonally available prey resources, which require adaptive foraging strategies. Therefore, owing to seasonal variations, analyses of diel patterns need to be conducted over sufficiently long time periods and large geographic scales to allow generalized interpretation of the findings. Consequently, no general conclusion regarding diel rhythms in harbour porpoise echolocation was found. We hypothesize that porpoises in the study area alternate between foraging on benthic prey in shallow waters at daytime and in the pelagic in deeper waters at night.
During recent decades, the 2 distinct harbour porpoise populations of the Baltic Sea have decreased sharply in abundance. The Baltic Proper population is down to a few hundred individuals and is regarded as 'Critically Endangered' by IUCN; the more abundant Belt Sea population also appears to have experienced a severe decline. We summarize the results of extensive static acoustic monitoring in the German part of the Baltic Sea and compare them to published results of aerial and acoustic surveys. Acoustic monitoring confirmed seasonal changes in detection rates consistent with proposed east -west migrations. Detection rates, and thus presumably porpoise density, decrease from west to east from a long-term mean ( in Kadet Trench to 4.4% DPD mo −1 in Pomeranian Bay as one crosses the putative population boundary. Acoustic monitoring results show a recent increase in porpoise registration rates in the Kadet Trench and in Pomeranian Bay, although this does not necessarily indicate a population increase. This large dataset supports the previously suggested proposition that each population uses the boundary waters in Pomeranian Bay alternately, leading to the presence of registration peaks in (late) summer by Belt Sea porpoises, and in winter by Baltic Proper animals. The critical status of porpoises in the Baltic Sea highlights the urgent need for protective measures which still await national and international implementation.
Knowing the abundance of a population is a crucial component to assess its conservation status and develop effective conservation plans. For most cetaceans, abundance estimation is difficult given their cryptic and mobile nature, especially when the population is small and has a transnational distribution. In the Baltic Sea, the number of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) has collapsed since the mid‐20th century and the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN and HELCOM; however, its abundance remains unknown. Here, one of the largest ever passive acoustic monitoring studies was carried out by eight Baltic Sea nations to estimate the abundance of the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise for the first time. By logging porpoise echolocation signals at 298 stations during May 2011–April 2013, calibrating the loggers’ spatial detection performance at sea, and measuring the click rate of tagged individuals, we estimated an abundance of 71–1105 individuals (95% CI, point estimate 491) during May–October within the population's proposed management border. The small abundance estimate strongly supports that the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise is facing an extremely high risk of extinction, and highlights the need for immediate and efficient conservation actions through international cooperation. It also provides a starting point in monitoring the trend of the population abundance to evaluate the effectiveness of management measures and determine its interactions with the larger neighboring Belt Sea population. Further, we offer evidence that design‐based passive acoustic monitoring can generate reliable estimates of the abundance of rare and cryptic animal populations across large spatial scales.
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