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，导致所有海洋中营养水平较低的生物量重新分配。重新分配可导致在传统觅食栖息地的鱼类和哺乳动物等移动性海洋捕食者的当地食物减少。我们对移动海洋捕食者对气候变化、不断变化的粮食供应和其他风险的累积影响的敏感性的了解非常有限。解释移动动物如何对食物分配的变化做出反应很重要，但测量海洋中的食物特性存在后勤和技术限制。这项拟议的研究针对以高浓度浮游动物为食的濒临灭绝的须鲸解决了这些问题。尽管观察到须鲸健康状况不佳或活动范围发生变化，但由于缺乏关于这些动物栖息的大范围内食物丰度、质量或可获得性的同时信息，相对于其他解释，包括直接人类影响，通常无法对食物变化对种群动态、健康和分布的影响进行强有力的评估。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，主要关注濒危的北大西洋露脊鲸，其次是短吻鲸物种。我的第一个目标是通过实地观察，在不同的海洋学栖息地中，描述气候驱动的环境对须鲸食物数量和质量的限制。我们的实验室正在领导一个国际合作者团队，在不同的栖息地同时进行海洋学和海洋哺乳动物调查；其中一些栖息地正在经历比其他栖息地更强烈的气候变化影响。我的第二个目标是开发一种自主移动的捕食者-猎物和气候测量系统，以增强我们测量须鲸食物数量和分布的能力。为了做到这一点，我的实验室将为海底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。回声探测仪是一项新开发的技术，我们将对其性能进行测试。我们将使用多传感器滑翔机在广阔的空间和时间尺度上同时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。这项研究计划将推进气候变化对须鲸种群的影响的预测，这是预测灭绝风险和促进有效的政策和管理行动拯救这些物种的关键因素。我的实验室将通过最新技术的新颖应用来推动全球鲸鱼研究，这些技术解决了其他须鲸物种面临的数据缺失挑战，其他物种很少有人在解决这些挑战。

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.