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Benoit-Bird KJ, Southall BL, Moline MA, Claridge DE, Dunn CA, Dolan KA, Moretti DJ
Critical threshold identified in the functional relationship between beaked whales and their prey
Anthropogenic noise is a significant stressor for marine animals, particularly deep-diving beaked whales. Benoit-Bird and colleagues combined the distribution of frequently disturbed beaked whales on two Navy test ranges with newly available in situ measurements of their primary prey – squid. Beaked whales in both habitats showed a critical threshold response to prey, below which they were unlikely to be successful but above which small changes in resource availability facilitated large foraging gains. This implies that even modest changes in the behavior of individual whales associated with human-caused disturbance can have consequential population effects – a critical understanding for effective mitigation efforts and spatial planning in the deep sea.