Mean copepod concentration indicates relative abundance of North Atlantic right whales on seasonal and interannual timescales: options for operational forecasts of right whale occurrence
Daniel
E.
Pendleton, Cornell University, dep22@cornell.edu
(Presenting)
Andrew
J.
Pershing, University of Maine & Gulf of Maine Research Institute, andrew.pershing@maine.edu
Moira
W.
Brown, New England Aquarium, mbrown@neaq.org
Charles
A.
Mayo, Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, stormym33@pobox.com
Robert
D.
Kenney, University of Rhode Island, rkenney@gso.uri.edu
Nicholas
R.
Record, University of Maine & Gulf of Maine Research Institute, nrecord@gmri.org
Timothy
V.N.
Cole, National Marine Fisheries Service, tcole@mercury.wh.whoi.edu
Management plans to reduce human-caused deaths of North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) depend on knowing when and where right whales are likely to be found. Local environmental conditions that influence movements of feeding right whales, such as ultra-dense copepod patches, are unpredictable and ephemeral. We examined the utility of using the regional-scale mean copepod concentration as an indicator of the abundance of right whales in two critical habitats off the northeastern coast of the United States: Cape Cod Bay and Great South Channel. Right whales are usually found in Cape Cod Bay during the late winter and early spring, and in the Great South Channel during the late spring and early summer. We found a significant positive relationship between Calanus finmarchicus in the western Gulf of Maine and the frequency of right whale sightings in the Great South Channel. In Cape Cod Bay we found a significant positive relationship between the concentration of other copepods (largely Pseudocalanus spp. and Centropages spp.) and the frequency of right whale sightings. This information furthers our understanding of what drives the seasonal movement and aggregation of right whales in the Gulf of Maine, and it offers a tool to modelers who seek to predict the movements of right whales based upon the concentration of copepods. We explore the use of dynamically modeled C.finmarchicus concentration as input to a right whale species distribution model, with the goal of producing likelihood maps of right whale occurrence on an operational timescale.
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