Climate-driven variation in the quantity, quality and availability of endangered baleen whale food

气候变化正在改变海洋食物网的功能，导致所有海洋中低营养级生物量的重新分配。重新分配可能导致传统觅食栖息地的鱼类和哺乳动物等流动海洋捕食者在当地的食物减少。我们对移动海洋捕食者对气候变化、食物供应变化和其他风险的累积影响的敏感性的了解非常有限。解释流动的动物如何对食物分布的变化做出反应是很重要的，但在测量海洋中的食物特征方面存在后勤和技术上的限制。拟议的研究解决了这些问题，濒临灭绝的须鲸吃高浓度的浮游动物。虽然在须鲸中观察到健康状况不佳或范围变化，但由于缺乏有关这些动物栖息的大范围内食物丰度、质量或可用性的同步信息，通常无法对食物变化对种群动态、健康和分布的影响进行可靠的评估，相对于其他解释，包括人类的直接影响。我的研究项目旨在解释气候驱动的食物数量和质量变化对西北大西洋大陆架须鲸生态的作用和意义，主要关注濒临灭绝的北大西洋露脊鲸，其次是鲸鱼物种。我的第一个目标是通过实地观察，描述气候驱动的环境约束对海洋不同栖息地中须鲸食物数量和质量的影响。我们的实验室正在领导一个由国际合作者组成的团队，在不同的栖息地同时进行海洋学和海洋哺乳动物调查；其中一些国家正在遭受比其他国家更严重的气候变化影响。我的第二个目标是开发一个自主移动声学捕食者-猎物和气候测量系统，以提高我们测量须鲸食物数量和分布的能力。为此，我的实验室将为水下滑翔机配备测量鲸鱼声音的声学记录器和测量鲸鱼食物的回声探测仪，以及测量关键气候变量的传感器。回声测深仪是新开发的技术，我们将测试其性能。我们将使用多传感器滑翔机，同时在广阔的空间和时间尺度上持续测量须鲸的分布及其相关的栖息地条件。这项研究将由新不伦瑞克大学戴维斯实验室的学生进行。该研究项目将推进气候变化对须鲸种群影响的预测，这是预测灭绝风险和促进有效政策和管理行动以拯救这些物种的关键因素。我的实验室将在全球范围内推进鲸鱼研究，利用最新技术的新应用，解决其他须鲸物种数据不足的挑战，而这些挑战很少有人能解决。

Climate change is altering marine food web function leading to redistribution of lower trophic level biomass in all oceans. Redistribution can lead to local food reductions for mobile marine predators such as fish and mammals in traditional foraging habitats. Our knowledge of mobile marine predator sensitivity to the cumulative impacts of climate change, changing food supply and other risks is very limited. It is important to explain how mobile animals respond to shifts in food distribution, but there are logistical and technological limitations to measuring food characteristics in the ocean. The proposed research addresses these issues for endangered baleen whales that eat high concentrations of zooplankton. Although poor health or range shifts have been observed in baleen whales, a lack of concurrent information on food abundance, quality or availability across the large ranges these animals inhabit has usually precluded robust assessment of the effect of food variation on population dynamics, health and distribution relative to other explanations, including direct human impacts. My research program seeks to explain the role and significance of climate-driven variation in food quantity and quality on baleen whale ecology on the Northwest Atlantic continental shelf, focusing primarily on the endangered North Atlantic right whale and secondarily on rorqual whale species. My first objective is to characterize climate-driven environmental constraints on baleen whale food quantity and quality among oceanographically distinct habitats using field observations. Our lab is leading a team of international collaborators to conduct concurrent oceanographic and marine mammal surveys in different habitats; some of which are experiencing stronger climate change impacts than others.  My second objective is to develop an autonomous mobile acoustic predator-prey and climate measurement system to enhance our ability to measure baleen whale food quantity and distribution. To do this, my lab will equip undersea gliders with acoustic recorders that measure whale sounds and echosounders to measure whale food, as well as sensors measuring key climate variables. The echosounders are newly developed technology and we will test their performance.  We will use multi-sensor gliders to concurrently measure the distribution of baleen whales and their associated habitat conditions persistently over broad space and time scales.  This research will be carried out by students in the Davies Lab at the University of New Brunswick. This research program will advance prediction of climate change impacts on baleen whale populations, which is a critical element of predicting extinction risk and facilitating effective policy and management action to save these species. My lab will advance whale research globally with the novel application of recent technologies that address data deficiency challenges in other baleen whale species that few others are addressing.