PacMam Podcast

Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!    

This episode: The hour glass dolphin

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Conservation of a species requires knowledge of the ecological, genetic and social components of the population being studied, but did you also know that social learning and culture are also vital to understand? Social learning and culture are increasingly being identified in a variety of species, and in particular, culture is being acknowledged as not just a human trait. However, they are not being integrated as important parts of a conservation strategy. These can influence reproduction and survival and influence (or be influenced by) demography that can affect population persistence and viability. Join us as we discuss what social learning and culture are, and how and why they are important to include to create biologically meaningful conservation measures.

Paper freely available: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2020.2718

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!    

This episode: Tucuxi and Guiana dolphins

We all know that nutrition is important, but for harbor porpoises, and particularly reproductively active females, it may be the key for long-term survival. Marine mammals have a lot of stressors, including boats, noise, pollution, habitat degredation, disease, climate change, and more, and all of these can affect the health of an individual.  But are there some things that have stronger influences on individual health, and thus the health of a population?  This is important to understand for the conservation of the population and species. Join us as we learn about what the biggest influence on reproductive success (and thus long-term survival) is for harbor porpoises, and how we can use that knowledge to better protect and conserve the small cetacean.

Paper freely available: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98629-x

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!

This week: Bulugas

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

Check out information on the recent beluga sighting in Puget Sound: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/genetic-analysis-shows-beluga-whale-puget-sound-likely-arrived-arctic-waters

Humans impact marine mammals both directly (through provisioning, boat interactions, etc) and indirectly (through our influence on climate change and associated environmental disturbances), and these are also not mutually exclusive.  Bottlenose dolphins as a species have good behavioral plasticity - meaning they can adapt and change their behaviors to fit the environment they are in.  This means they are better off than other species that are more specialized in their niche when environmental disturbances (which are ever increasing due to climate change) occur.  But at the individual level this may not be the case for every dolphin in a population.  Some choose a more specialized foraging strategy, which could become a problem if that resource is heavily impacted by a disturbance.  The effects of this can be exacerbated when there is direct human interaction like provisioning, as these dolphins have other stressors and changes to their behavior. Join us as we look at the interplay between human influence and forage specialization on the lives of individual bottlenose dolphins from a long-term (37 years) research group in Monkey Mia, Australia.

Paper freely available: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.617550/full

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Harbor porpoises are thought of as relatively non-social animals. They live in smaller groups, don't have as wide a repertoire (as far as we know) of vocalizations and live shorter lifespans than their highly social dolphin cousins.  But there is mounting data that there is more to their sociality than we currently understand, and this study adds to that body of evidence.  Using drones, researchers documented groups and individuals foraging in shallow water in Denmark.  What they found went against most of what was thought about the sociality of harbor porpoises - they were cooperating. The majority of the time they were found hunting in groups, and in those groups individuals had specific roles, evidence that they are involved collaborative hunting, a more complex type of cooperation. This strategy is normally found in social animals, so perhaps there is more to the harbor porpoise's sociality than we know.  Listen to learn more about this interesting study and the implications of the work on what we know about harbor porpoise behavior. 

Paper freely available: https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2020-0289

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!    

This week: Dusky dolphins

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie

Taking a bite out of anything usually leaves a mark, but did you know these can be used to tell us more about how much, how often and how severe the attacks were? Researchers can also look at differences between species, and if there are differences in how the killer whales attacked the whales, by looking at the location/placement of the bite mark.  That is exactly Corsi et al. (2021) did in this interesting paper we are covering this week.  The flukes are the most common place for these attacks to occur. The animals almost always try to flee first (so think about a dog nipping at your heels), but if they fight back, they use their tail which is very very powerful - either way the tail is the body part that is in the path of the attacking mouth.  They looked at rake marks and fluke mutilation (missing portions of the flukes) on photos of individual Gray, Blue and Humpback whales in the Eastern North Pacific that were attacked by the marine mammal eating Biggs (or transient) killer whales.  Join us to find out what they learned, how there were differences between the species, and how photo-ID is more than just IDing individuals; it can tell us so much more about these species and the threats they face.

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12863  This one is not open access, so you will need to contact the author for pdf print, email is found at that link.

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Join Pacific Mammal Research (PacMam) scientists to learn about different marine mammals! We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!    

This week: Sea otters  

Learn more about sea otters in 'Return of the Sea Otter: The Story of the Animal That Evaded Extinction on the Pacific Coast by Todd McLeish (click link!)  

Presenters: Cindy Elliser, Katrina MacIver, Trevor Derie