Líffræðifélag Íslands
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2015
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V7
"Chosson-P, V.(1); Shears, G. (2); Rasmussen, M. (3); Bertulli, C.G. (4); Stevick, P. (2); Rickert, S. (2); Pampoulie, C. (1);. Sigurjónsson, J. (1); Víkingson, G. A. (1)"
(1) Marine Research Institute of Iceland, Skúlagata 4, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland (2) College of Atlantic, 105 Eden Street, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA (3) The University of Iceland´s Research Center in Husavik, Hafnarstett 3, 640 Husavik Iceland (4) Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Sturlugata 7, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Chosson Valerie
Tengiliður / Corresponding author: Chosson Valerie (valerie@hafro.is)
For nearly four decades, seasonal migrations of humpback whales across the North Atlantic have been documented using photo-identification. Humpback whales from the feeding grounds off Iceland have previously been identified in several low-latitude breeding areas. However, these earlier sample sizes had been too small to evaluate patterns in this migration. To date, 573 unique individuals have been identified within Icelandic feeding waters and systematically compared to whales identified in the breeding areas. Records span 1981-2014 and were collected during both dedicated surveys and incidental encounters. Of these, 44 individuals were re-sighted in known North Atlantic breeding areas. There were re-sightings to three areas where migration had previously been shown, the Dominican Republic (n =26), Puerto Rico (n=8) and the Cape Verde Islands (n=6). These findings also include the first record of migration from the Icelandic feeding ground to the under-studied southeast Caribbean breeding area (n=6). These results confirm previous findings suggesting the occurrence of humpback whales from the Icelandic feeding grounds on breeding areas along both the eastern and western margins of the Atlantic. Although humpback whale from Icelandic waters contribute to all the known breeding and calving grounds, they do not use them equally (p=0.007). As a function of sample size, the proportion of Icelandic humpback whales within the Dominican Republic breeding area is three times smaller than that of the whales in the Cape Verde Islands and five times smaller than in the southeast Caribbean. This new study gives us a better insight into the migration patterns of humpback whales from the Icelandic feeding ground(s) to the breeding grounds on both sides of the North Atlantic. Photo-Identification methods supported by satellite tagging and genetic studies will give us an even better understanding of movement patterns on and between breeding and feeding areas in the coming years.