Sperm whale diving behavior monitored using a suction-cup-attached TDR tag

Amano, Masao; Yoshioka, Motoi

doi:10.3354/meps258291

Cited by 62 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…There are few published results dealing with the daily variation of sperm whale feeding cycles. However, Amano & Yoshioka (2003) presented dive profiles obtained from a single whale during 62 successive hours: the dive pattern displayed dive-free periods during the afternoon or early evening. Furthermore, although their tag was not suited to sound recording, the authors indicated that some dives featured 'inactive' bottom phase, which they interpreted as resting dives.…”

Section: Creak Rates Of Individual Whalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging dives of sperm whales in the north-western Mediterranean Sea

Gannier¹,

Petiau

Dulau³

et al. 2012

J. Mar. Biol. Ass.

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Oceanic odontocetes rely on echolocation to forage on pelagic or benthic prey, but their feeding ecology is difficult to study. We studied sperm whale foraging dives during summer in the north-western Mediterranean, using visual and passive acoustic observations. Clicking and creaking activities were recorded during dives of focal whales, at distances ,3000 m using a towed hydrophone and DAT recorder. A total of 52 sperm whales were recorded over at least one full dive cycle. Data were obtained for 156 complete dives in total, including sequences of up to nine consecutive dives. Various dive and environmental variables were entered in multiple linear regression and principal components analysis, as well as estimated mass of whales. Creak rate was 0.80 creak/minute on average, with moderate variance. Bigger whales tended to dive longer at greater depths (as suggested by ascent durations), and emitted more creaks during a dive: 20.2 creaks/dive on average for individuals ,24 tons, compared to 25.6 creaks/dive for animals .24 tons of estimated mass. For individual whales, creak rates did not vary significantly with size (range 0.78 -0.80 creak/minute), but decreased with time of the day, and increased for shorter foraging phases. For different dives, higher creak rates were also observed earlier in the day, and linked to shorter foraging phases and surface durations. Although the exact significance of creak emissions (i.e. foraging attempt or prey capture) is not precisely determined, creak rates may be reliably used to quantify sperm whale foraging when single animal dives can be followed acoustically.

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Section: Creak Rates Of Individual Whalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging dives of sperm whales in the north-western Mediterranean Sea

Gannier¹,

Petiau

Dulau³

et al. 2012

J. Mar. Biol. Ass.

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“…Dive depth was defined as the maximum depth of the dive. Speed through the water was measured using an external propeller on the PD3GT accelerometer, and the propeller rotation count was converted to the actual swimming speed (m s −1 ) using a calibration method (Blackwell et al 1999, Amano & Yoshioka 2003. Swim speed was calculated based on the number of rotations of the data logger's propeller, according to a linear relationship with the vertical depth change rate.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of a speed sensor with an accelerometer has revealed that tagged sperm whales occasionally accelerate up to approximately 7.0 m s −1 , with rapid changes in body posture and sharp turns (Amano & Yoshioka 2003, Aoki et al 2012. These events, termed bursts of speed, have been suggested to occur only when whales capture large and/or muscular prey.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual and behavioral evidence indicates active hunting by sperm whales

Aoki¹,

Amano²,

Kubodera³

et al. 2015

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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It is hypothesized that sperm whales employ active pursuit strategies for hunting prey, mainly deep-sea squid at great depths, but no visual evidence has been obtained to confirm this. We recorded the hunting behavior of sperm whales using animal-borne cameras and accelerometers simultaneously deployed on 17 whales, and obtained 42.8 h of diving data, including 17 715 images. A statistical comparison indicated no clear effect of light (with or without flashing white lights from cameras) on diving behavior of tagged whales. Although 98.5% of the still images were of empty water and uninformative, 5 classes of images with visible material were identified: (1) suspended material, possibly squid ink (n = 17), (2) unidentified particles (n = 4), (3) possible animal body parts (n = 2), (4) other sperm whales (n = 221), and (5) the seafloor (n = 8). All image classes were recorded at deeper depths (mean ± SD = 785 ± 140 m), except Class 4 images, which were recorded only at depths < 339 m, suggesting that tagged whales swam alone while foraging at great depths. Simultaneous use of speed and image sensors revealed that Class 1 images were associated with bursts of speed up to approximately twice (3.3 ± 1.0 m s

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“…Minimikawa et al 2007; Andrews et al 2008) or potentially less-invasive suction-cups for 1 9 6 5 1 9 6 8 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 7 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 8 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 4 2 0 0 7 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 3 1 9 6 5 1 9 6 8 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 4 1 9 7 7 1 9 8 0 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 6 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 2 1 9 9 5 1 9 9 8 2 0 shorter-term deployments (e.g. Amano and Yoshioka 2003;O'Malley Miller et al 2010). Scientists generally rely on either capturing smaller cetaceans (e.g.…”

Section: Which Marine Mammals Are Instrumented?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in tagging of marine mammals: a review of marine mammal biologging studies

McIntyre¹

2014

African Journal of Marine Science

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science of biologging is somewhat older and is recognised to have started as early as the 1940s, when depth gauges were used on whales and seals (Scholander 1940). After Scholander, the earliest biologging devices used on marine animals are generally recognised to be the maximum-depth recorder (DeVries and Wohlschlag 1964) and time-depth recorders (Kooyman 1965), all of which were deployed on Weddell seals Leptonychotes weddellii (Evans et al. 2013).Technological advances are increasingly allowing for the miniaturisation of devices, as well as the incorporation of more sophisticated sensors into animal-borne instruments. For example, the use of fast-loc GPS technology (e.g. Dragon et al. 2012a), accelerometers (Naito et al. 2010 and camera systems (e.g. Naito et al. 2013) is allowing more detailed and fine-scale assessments of marine animal movements and behaviour. Furthermore, the addition of various sensors to biologging instruments is contributing increasingly to our understanding of ocean physical properties (Fedak 2013) and how marine mammals adjust their behaviour in relation to them (e.g. McIntyre et al. 2011a;Jaud et al. 2012;Bestley et al. 2013). Although the technological advances are clear, it is of interest to know how these technologies are applied in scientific studies and what specific questions are being addressed.Biologging devices are currently used in scientific studies of numerous taxa, including terrestrial mammals (e.g. Hetem et al. 2012;McFarland et al. 2013), reptiles (e.g. Dubois et al. 2009;Watanabe et al. 2013), birds (e.g. Dean et al. 2013;Phipps et al. 2013), fish (e.g. Bonfil et al. 2005Yasuda et al. 2013) and even invertebrates (e.g. Stewart et al. 2012;Watts et al. 2012). Given the obvious difficulties in observing animals at sea directly, the use of biologging technologies is ideally suited for studies involving marine animals, particularly semi-aquatic species that haul out on land, thereby providing opportunities for the deployment of instruments. Marine biologists (and marine mammalogists in particular) are increasingly making use of biologging technology. This is exemplified by the study species reported in the titles and abstracts of presentations (n  Trends in tagging of marine mammals: a review of marine mammal biologging studies T McIntyre Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Hatfield, South Africa e-mail: tmcintyre@zoology.up.ac.zaThe number of scientific papers resulting from biologging instruments deployed on marine mammals is increasing as improved technologies result in smaller devices and improved sensor-, storage-and transmission capabilities. I undertook a comprehensive review of papers resulting from biologging deployments on free-ranging marine mammals between 1965 and 2013 (n = 620) to summarise where (e.g. on which species, as well as in which geographic areas) deployment efforts were focused, the impacts of the resulting papers, and where there are shortcomings in the literature. Species-, sex-and age-class...

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Sperm whale diving behavior monitored using a suction-cup-attached TDR tag

Cited by 62 publications

References 15 publications

Foraging dives of sperm whales in the north-western Mediterranean Sea

Foraging dives of sperm whales in the north-western Mediterranean Sea

Visual and behavioral evidence indicates active hunting by sperm whales

Trends in tagging of marine mammals: a review of marine mammal biologging studies

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