The North Atlantic right whale is among the world’s biggest animals. It’s also one of its most endangered. Models of their distribution are essential for tracking and managing these behemoths across their vast territory.
But it turns out the whales go where their food is. A new study, led by Bigelow Laboratory scientists, shows that one has to incorporate nuanced and detailed information on these giants’ favorite tiny food sources to make those models as accurate as possible.
The study, with partners New England Aquarium, University of Maine, Duke University, and NOAA, details an approach for incorporating information on the abundance of zooplankton relative to a whale’s daily energy needs. It provides a more direct way of representing prey in habitat models that improves their usefulness compared to those that rely on more abstract satellite proxies.
The work also raises new questions about the complexity of the right whale diet and begins to provide a more holistic view of how right whales are using their habitat — and how that might shift in a changing ocean.
