Isotopes from fossil coronulid barnacle shells record evidence of migration in multiple Pleistocene whale populations

Abstract

Migration is an integral feature of modern mysticete whale ecology, and the demands of migration may have played a key role in shaping mysticete evolutionary history. Constraining when migration became established and assessing how it has changed through time may yield valuable insight into the evolution of mysticete whales and the oceans in which they lived. However, there are currently few data which directly assess prehistoric mysticete migrations. Here we show that calcite δ18O profiles of two species of modern whale barnacles (coronulids) accurately reflect the known migration routes of their host whales. We then analyze well-preserved fossil coronulids from three different locations along the eastern Pacific coast, finding that δ18O profiles from these fossils exhibit trends and ranges similar to modern specimens. Our results demonstrate that migration is an ancient behavior within the humpback and gray whale lineages and that multiple Pleistocene populations were undertaking migrations of an extent similar to those of the present day.

Abundance, placement and sexual identity of the epizoic barnacle Chelonibia testudinaria relative to the size and species of host turtles in Mabul Island, Malaysia

“…Future insights on the aggregation pattern of complemental males on adult hermaphrodites could be done by using a zonal model to determine settlement behaviour and survival of barnacles in relation to distance of the nearest conspecific from a given individual. Future studies should consider barnacle shell isotopes to trace movements and residence time of sea turtles in each habitat, such as has been done for inferring ancient whale migration routes and patterns (Buckeridge et al ., 2018; Taylor et al ., 2019).…”

Stratigraphic Lexicon: The Onshore Cenozoic Sedimentary Formations of The Republic of Panama

“…(https://www.pnas.org/content/116/15/7377, Taylor et al (2019)) and therefore unconformably sits on the Pliocene there. More sedimentological studies are needed but there is no reason to believe that the whale is in the Armuelles formation.…”

The awkward record of fossil whales

“…Considering the sudden expansion of the habitat of whale fall communities connected with the advent of gigantism, increasingly efficient bone-eaters are likely candidates to explain lower records also at shelf depths, where Osedax currently extends its influence (Vrijenhoek et al, 2009;Smith et al, 2015). The presence of large baleen whales is in fact, and nonetheless, indirectly recorded by the thick shells of their coronulid commensals, increasingly abundant in Pleistocene sediments, widely used as proxies to document the presence of their obligate hosts (Bianucci et al, 2006;Dominici et al, 2011;Collareta et al, 2016;Taylor et al, 2019). Not all studies, however, agree on the impact of Osedax on whale bone preservation.…”