MEPS 725:167-184 (2023)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14461

ABSTRACT: Without substantive reduction in anthropogenic trauma, Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis (NARWs) risk extinction. Decreasing population size is attributable to 2 main issues besides vessel collision: entanglement in fishing gear and changes in food availability due to ecosystem changes in the face of climate disruption. Both can affect NARW energetics, leading to reduced body condition, decreased reproductive success of individuals, and deterioration of overall population health. To measure the impact of these stressors and their interaction, energetic costs associated with entanglement and starvation were incorporated in a bioenergetics model, established for a generic female right whale. We compared models for a NARW living now, one from 2 decades ago, when the species’ abundance was increasing at approximately 2% yr^-1, and a southern right whale (SRW) from a population increasing at approximately 6% yr^-1. Parameter uncertainty associated with daily estimates of energy income, basal metabolic rate, and possible influences of baleen rack disruption from entanglement was so great that differences between the 3 generic right whale females were indistinguishable. Therefore, we included a stunted whale in the model. It was also indistinguishable from our first 3 model whales. Further, it made robust predictions of NARW energy budgets, let alone the impact of specific stressors of varying intensity, impossible. The capacity of bioenergetic modeling to inform conservation management of NARWs will be substantially enhanced by resolving these parameter uncertainties.

KEY WORDS: Bioenergetics model · Energy budget · Sublethal stressor · Reproductive success · Entanglement · Eubalaena glacialis · Cetacea

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Cite this article as: Hütt JC, Corkeron P, van der Hoop JM, Moore MJ (2023) Uncertain bioenergetics of North Atlantic right whales. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 725:167-184. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14461 Export citation Share:    Facebook - - linkedIn