Predicting right whale distributions from space

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Predicting right whale distributions from space
Andrew Pershing, Nick Record, Dan Pendleton University of Maine Gulf of Maine Research Institute Bruce Monger, Chris Clark Cornell University
Stormy Mayo, Karen Stamieszkin Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies Changsheng Chen University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
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Right whale, wrong time?

• Threats to population
• Ship strikes
• Fishing gear
• All management options depend on knowing where
  whales are

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Story II Whales follow food
Jan-Mar
Apr-May

• On the habitat scale, whales follow food
• CCB
• Other copepods early
• Calanus briefly
• Costa et al. (2006)
• Pendleton et al. (2009)

Calanus
Others
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Story II Whales follow food

• On the habitat scale, whales follow food
• GSC
• Spring Calanus
• Pendleton et al. (2009)

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RWPS 1.0

• SEASCAPESatellite-based Estimates and Analysis
  of Stage-resolved Copepod Abundance in Pelagic
  Ecosystems
• Satellites can measure temperature and
  chlorophyll from space
• Copepod growth and reproduction is related to
  temp chl

Adult
C5
C1-4
nauplii
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Developing the Model
Calanus Abundance
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Predicting Whales from Calanus
Whale Arrival Date
CLDG
WBas
EGoM
MBay
GSC
CCB
Frtn
SS
60
80
Model Day
100
120
140
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Predicting Whales from Calanus
Whale Arrival Date
CLDG
WBas
EGoM
MBay
GSC
CCB
Frtn
SS
60
80
Model Day
100
Whales arrive early when food is abundant
120
140
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Summary

• Presence and abundance of right whales is related
  to average copepod concentrations
• Average copepods (Calanus) concentrations can be
  modeled
• Goal for 2009 push to a finer scale, focus on
  Cape Cod Bay
• high resolution physics from FVCOM
• assimilate zooplankton observations with ensemble
  Kalman filter
• build right whale habitat models with MaxEnt

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RWPS 2.0

• 2009 focus on Mass Bay
• Pseudocalanus, Centropages, Calanus
• assimilating PCCS surveys using ensemble Kalman
  filter
• available at seascapemodeling.org

Pseudocalanus
No assimilation
January cruises
Jan-Feb cruises
2/25/09
3/6/09
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Right whale habitat models

• Use 2003-2006 whale sightings to develop MaxEnt
  model
• bathymetry 40.6
• Calanus 23.8
• Pseudocalanus 14.5
• SST 12.3
• Chl (log10) 8.8

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Right whale habitat predictions
Jan 17
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Right whale habitat predictions
Jan 25
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Right whale habitat predictions
Feb 10
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Right whale habitat predictions
Feb 18
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Right whale habitat predictions
Feb 26
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Right whale habitat predictions
Mar 14
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Right whale habitat predictions
Mar 22
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Right whale habitat predictions
Mar 30
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Right whale habitat predictions
Apr 7
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Right whale habitat predictions
Apr 15
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Next Steps

• Evaluate/refine habitat maps
• hindcast 1998-2009
• passive acoustic localizations
• add data assimilation
• Evaluate aerial survey procedures
• arrival data forecasts for aerial survey boxes
• adaptive sampling
• direct plane/ship to areas of high uncertainty

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