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Body density and diving gas volume of the northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus)

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Miller_etal_2016_bottlenosewhale_density.pdf (924.5Kb)
Date
17/08/2016
Author
Miller, Patrick
Narazaki, Tomoko
Isojunno, Saana
Suzuki, Kagari
Smout, Sophie Caroline
Sato, Katsufumi
Keywords
Body condition
Lipid
Hydrodynamic performance
Drag
Buoyancy
GC Oceanography
QH301 Biology
QL Zoology
Agricultural and Biological Sciences(all)
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Abstract
Diving lung volume and tissue density, reflecting lipid store volume, are important physiological parameters that have only been estimated for a few breath-hold diving species. We fitted 12 northern bottlenose whales with data loggers that recorded depth, 3-axis acceleration and speed either with a fly-wheel or from change of depth corrected by pitch angle.We fitted measured values of the change in speed during 5 s descent and ascent glides to a hydrodynamic model of drag and buoyancy forces using a Bayesian estimation framework. The resulting estimate of diving gas volume was 27.4±4.2 (95% credible interval, CI) ml kg−1, closely matching the measured lung capacity of the species. Dive-by-dive variation in gas volume did not correlate with dive depth or duration. Estimated body densities of individuals ranged from 1028.4 to 1033.9 kg m−3 at the sea surface, indicating overall negative tissue buoyancy of this species in seawater. Body density estimates were highly precise with ±95% CI ranging from 0.1to 0.4 kg m−3, which would equate to a precision of <0.5% of lipid content based upon extrapolation from the elephant seal. Six whales tagged near Jan Mayen (Norway, 71°N) had lower body density and were closer to neutral buoyancy than six whales tagged in the Gully (Nova Scotia, Canada, 44°N), a difference that was consistent with the amount of gliding observed during ascent versus descent phases in these animals. Implementation of this approach using longer duration tags could be used to track longitudinal changes in body density and lipid store body condition of free-ranging cetaceans.
Citation
Miller , P , Narazaki , T , Isojunno , S , Suzuki , K , Smout , S C & Sato , K 2016 , ' Body density and diving gas volume of the northern bottlenose whale ( Hyperoodon ampullatus ) ' , Journal of Experimental Biology , vol. 219 , no. 16 , pp. 2458-2468 . https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.137349
Publication
Journal of Experimental Biology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.137349
ISSN
0022-0949
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Description
Funding for fieldwork and data analysis was provided by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), project RC-2337
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/18/2962
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/9326

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