{"id":1073,"date":"2021-08-16T10:07:25","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T09:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimafoundation.org\/2021\/08\/16\/sea-time-a-review-of-cima-research-foundation-studies-on-cetaceans\/"},"modified":"2021-08-16T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T10:09:08","slug":"sea-time-a-review-of-cima-research-foundation-studies-on-cetaceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/news\/sea-time-a-review-of-cima-research-foundation-studies-on-cetaceans\/","title":{"rendered":"Sea Time. A review of CIMA Research Foundation studies on cetaceans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We tell some of the research carried on in recent months by researchers of our Marine Ecosystems Department<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It’s summertime, and many of us spend holidays at the beach… But how much do we know about the species that live under the surface of the water? Our Marine Ecosystems Department<\/a>\u2019s researchers have been studying cetaceans for years, focusing in particular on those that inhabit the Pelagos Sanctuary, to understand the health of their populations and the main risks they face, and trying to identify strategies to mitigate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to take advantage of the summer and “beach season” to tell you about some of the studies they have published in these early months of the year on the subject!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studying the beaked whale<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Beaked whales are a family of cetaceans still relatively little known, especially compared to other more iconic species. A letter<\/a> published in Science<\/em> and signed by Songhai Li, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Massimiliano Rosso of our Marine Ecosystems Department is dedicated to this still scarce knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers start from the consideration that the little information we have on beaked whales often comes from stranded individuals – yet there is probably much to discover, as evidenced by reports of possible sightings of new species (including the mesoplodon in the South China Sea, also reported in an paper<\/a> signed by our researchers). With the exception of some areas in the northwest of the world, research on these species is still in its infancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order not to risk losing these animals before we have even met them and to understand how much and how anthropogenic activities threaten them, conservation policies, funding, education and research must move together to establish the correct conservation strategies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly before the publication of the letter, at the beginning of the year, another article helped to add some pieces on the distribution of a particular species of beaked whale, Ziphius cavirostris<\/em>. This is the first report of the strandings of Z. cavirostris <\/em>along the coast of Tunisia<\/strong>. The presence of the species in the area had not yet been ascertained with certainty and indeed it was believed that Tunisian waters may not be a suitable habitat: the documentation presented in the article suggests instead that the species can live in the north western area. It will therefore be important to learn more about the Cuvier\u2019s beaked whale distribution and abundance in the area, possibly with a view to listing the area among the Important Marine Mammal Protected Areas of Mediterranean Sea of the IUCN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Models to study the distribution of cetaceans. And protect them from collisions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

For cetaceans, and in particular for species already at risk of extinction, collisions with boats can represent a significant danger. Two different works have been dedicated to this problem, both as a result of research carried out within the SICOMAR plus<\/a> project, financed within the Italy-France Interreg Maritime program and dedicated to improve the navigation safety in the cross-border maritime area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first paper<\/a>, published in the journal Aquatic Conservation<\/em>, aimed to establish a methodological basis to analyze the dynamics of cetaceans<\/strong>, specifically fin whales in the Pelagos Sanctuary area. In fact, fin whales gather here during the summer months to feed; this exposes them to the risk of collisions with vessels, a particularly serious problem considering that the species is already classified as “vulnerable” by the IUCN. To identify the most at-risk areas, the researchers used two different models and data collected over nearly a decade aboard ferries on the presence of minke whales. They then compared the results provided by the models with already known data on minke whale distribution. The work revealed significant variability in minke whale distribution from year to year, which in turn affects collision risk (estimated as a function of the overlap between the probability of minke whale occurrence and ferry density).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second research<\/a>, on the other hand, focuses on static risk. In other words, the authors identified stable hotspots of fin whale and sperm whale distribution<\/strong> in the Pelagos Sanctuary that, being located along major traffic corridors, represent areas potentially at higher risk of collision.  The researchers point out that, despite the high inter-annual variability of cetacean distribution reported in the previous paper, through ad hoc analysis of long-term datasets it is possible to highlight static patterns to be used for vessel traffic management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this work is primarily aimed at limiting the risk of collision, it is worth noting that the ecological models used in this research may have other applications as well. This is shown, for example, by a paper<\/a> published in May in Frontiers in Marine Science<\/em>, in which they were used to assess the habitat preferences of different species<\/strong> (in particular, the eight most sighted in the area between the Iberian peninsula, the African coast and the islands of Macaronesia) and to predict the most suitable habitats for them. The results obtained through the models provide a number of indications: for example, coastal areas represent an important habitat for bottlenose dolphins, other dolphin species have a more oceanic distribution, while the predicted niches for the zyphium and minke whale are mainly located in the high seas at northern latitudes. For all species, models suggest that areas around seamounts offer suitable and probably highly important habitats: further investigation in such areas could therefore help develop appropriate management plans that are currently lacking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally: a look north<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

While we have so far mainly cited work focused on the distribution and population dynamics of cetaceans, there is one final paper<\/a> that deserves mention. It is a research conducted in collaboration with two researchers from the University of Iceland, dedicated to investigate the social organization of a species that we do not find in Italian waters: it is the white-beaked dolphin<\/strong> (Lagenorhynchus albirostris<\/em>), a dolphin living in the North Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social dynamics in vertebrates influence several ecological variables, including vulnerability to anthropogenic activities and disease transmission. To date, nothing was known about the white-beaked dolphin despite the fact that, like other Arctic species, it has an uncertain future due to climate change. In this study, the researchers showed that white-beaked dolphin has a dynamic in which groups of individuals are created and undone over time (referred to, in ecology, as fission-fusion dynamics) and is very flexible, with the creation of both short-term and (more rarely) long-term relationships. This mirrors what has been observed in other delphinids, which also live in completely different environments, such as tropical waters; this suggests that the overall tradeoff between group size, predation risk, and feeding success, i.e., the elements that shape social organization, outweighs local adaptations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the authors note, the creation of relatively small groups could be related to the uneven availability of resources. Indeed, the distribution and abundance of white-beaked dolphin prey has changed in recent years due to variations in temperature and salinity in Icelandic waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We tell some of the research carried on in recent months by researchers of our Marine Ecosystems Department It’s summertime, and many of us spend holidays at the beach… But how much do we know about the species that live under the surface of the water? Our Marine Ecosystems Department\u2019s researchers have been studying cetaceans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1071,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,121],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-marine-ecosystems","tag-data"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cimafoundation.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}