Double-observer line transect methods are becoming increasingly widespread, especially for the estimation of marine mammal abundance from aerial and shipboard surveys when detection of animals on the line is uncertain. The resulting data supplement conventional distance sampling data with two-sample mark-recapture data. Like conventional mark-recapture data, these have inherent problems for est...

We explored the feasibility of collecting exhaled breath from a moribund gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) for potential non-invasive health monitoring of marine mammals. Biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) profiling is a relatively new field of research, in which the chemical composition of breath is used to non-invasively assess the health and physiological processes on-going within an ...

Large planktivores require high-density prey patches to make feeding energetically viable. This is a major challenge for species living in tropical and subtropical seas, such as whale sharks Rhincodon typus. Here, we characterize zooplankton biomass, size structure and taxonomic composition from whale shark feeding events and background samples at Mafia Island, Tanzania. The majority of whale s...

We conducted a species-level study of molluscs associated with a 5 m long 17 carcass of a minke whale at a depth of 125 m in the Kosterfjord (North Sea, Sweden). The 18 whale fall community was quantitatively compared with the community commonly living in 19 the surrounding soft-bottom sediments. Five years after the deployment of the dead whale at 20 the sea floor, the sediments around the wha...

To examine the inter-species difference of sensitivity to mercury toxicity in whales, total mercury (T-Hg), methyl mercury (MeHg) and selenium (Se) levels in the liver, kidneys and muscle of three whales (common minke whales Balaenoptera acutorostrata; Bryde’s whales B. edeni; sperm whales Physeter. macrocephalus) were measured. T-Hg and MeHg were higher in the order of sperm whale > common min...

Whale sharks Rhincodon typus are globally threatened, but a lack of biological and demographic information hampers an accurate assessment of their vulnerability to further decline or capacity to recover. We used laser photogrammetry at two aggregation sites to obtain more accurate size estimates of free-swimming whale sharks compared to visual estimates, allowing improved estimates of biologica...

Sperm whales in the New England continental shelf and slope were passively localized, in both range and bearing, and classified using a single low-frequency (<2500 Hz), densely sampled, towed horizontal coherent hydrophone array system. Whale bearings were estimated using time-domain beamforming that provided high coherent array gain in sperm whale click signal-to-noise ratio. Whale ranges from...

The deep sea is a unique and extreme environment characterized by low concentrations of highly recalcitrant carbon. As a consequence, large organic inputs have potential to cause significant perturbation. To assess the impact of organic enrichment on deep sea microbial communities, we investigated bacterial diversity in sediments underlying two whale falls at 1820 and 2893 m depth in Monterey C...