{"id":13694,"date":"2025-03-06T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=13694"},"modified":"2025-02-27T03:31:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T03:31:53","slug":"whales-sing-good-meal-research-march-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/whales-sing-good-meal-research-march-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Whales sing when they\u2019ve had a good meal \u2013 new\u00a0research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n \n Stock Photos Studios\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n Ted Cheeseman<\/a>, Southern Cross University<\/a><\/em> and Jarrod Santora<\/a>, University of California, Santa Cruz<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Spanning more octaves than a piano, humpback whales sing powerfully into the vast ocean. These songs are beautifully complex, weaving phrases and themes into masterful compositions. Blue and fin whales richly fill out a bass section with their own unique versions of song. <\/p>\n\n

Together, these three species can create a marvellous symphony in the sea. <\/p>\n\n

Published today in PLOS One<\/a>, our new research reveals these baleen whale species\u2019 response to major changes in their ecosystem can be heard in their songs.<\/p>\n\n

Food for long-distance travel<\/h2>\n\n

The six-year study took place in whale foraging habitat in the eastern North Pacific, off the coast of California in the United States. From this biologically rich foraging habitat, the whales migrate long distances each year to breeding habitats at lower latitudes. <\/p>\n\n

They eat little to nothing during their migration and winter breeding season. So they need to build up their energy stores during their annual residence in foraging habitat. <\/p>\n\n

This energy, stored in their gigantic bodies, powers the animals through months of long-distance travel, mating, calving, and nursing before they return to waters off California in the spring and summer to resume foraging.<\/p>\n\n

The whales eat krill and fish that can aggregate in massive schools. However, their diets are distinct. <\/p>\n\n

While blue whales only eat krill, humpback whales eat krill and small schooling fish such as anchovy. If the prey species are more abundant and more densely concentrated, whales can forage more efficiently. Foraging conditions and prey availability change dramatically from year to year. <\/p>\n\n

We wanted to know if these changes in the ecosystem were reflected in the whales\u2019 acoustic behaviour.<\/p>\n\n

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