Acoustic Vector Sensing of Blue and Fin Whale Habitat Occupancy off Central California

Abstract

Temporally varying geographic distributions of whale populations are difficult to visually monitor across large marine ecosystems. Acoustic vector sensing (AVS) of the powerful calls produced by baleen whales enables continuous monitoring over large areas with spatial information contained in the bearing estimates to whales. Using three years of AVS data in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, we examine the habitat occupancy of endangered blue and fin whale populations. The calls of fin whales persistently originated primarily in offshore deep-water (ODW) habitat, shifting into shelf / slope habitat only occasionally. The calls of blue whales originated primarily in shelf / slope habitat. However, detection of blue whales in ODW habitat increased significantly across the study period with stronger wind-driven upwelling that increased krill abundance and expanded foraging habitat. This expansion increased both the spatial overlap of blue and fin whales and the exposure of blue whales to ship strike risk. AVS is an effective method of passive acoustic monitoring for informing marine ecological research and conservation.

Ecological habitat characterization of baleen whales in the northern Mozambique Channel: Linking seasonal acoustic detections with environmental drivers
Mathilde Michel, Auriane Virgili, Richard Dréo +4
Global Ecology and Conservation11 Sep 2026Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Full text1 citedEcologyHAL
Broad Habitat Tolerance of the Alien Duchesnea indica (Andrews) Teschem. Across Urban Vegetation Communities in a Central European City
Plants (Basel, Switzerland)23 Sep 2026Peer-reviewedCC BYFull textPlant biologyEurope PMC
Acoustic Monitoring of Tropical Bats: Saccopteryx bilineata's response to habitat and time across a restoration gradient using a 2D-CNN
I. L. Secord, X. Zhang, R. Preston-Allen +1
bioRxiv28 Sep 2026PreprintCC BYFull textEcologybioRxiv
Acoustic indices can be driven by habitat characteristics rather than bird diversity
You-Fang Chen, Christos Mammides, Sheng Li +2
Environmental and Sustainability Indicators8 Jul 2026Peer-reviewedCC BY-NC-ND 4.0Full textEcology Environmental science & pollutionHAL
Performance comparison of probe-capture enrichment sequencing of viruses in wastewater influent and settled solids from the California Central Valley
A. Lavon, J. M. Pender, R. Olson +7
bioRxiv2 Oct 2026PreprintCC BY-NC-NDFull textGenetics & genomicsbioRxiv

Cite

BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{ryan2026acoustic,
  title = {{Acoustic Vector Sensing of Blue and Fin Whale Habitat Occupancy off Central California}},
  author = {John P Ryan and Paul Leary and Kevin Smith and Jarrod Santora and Kelly J Benoit-Bird and William K Oestreich and John E Joseph and Tetyana Margolina and John Calambokidis and James Fahlbusch and Andrew DeVogelaere and Brandon Southall and Jeremy Goldbogen},
  howpublished = {EcoEvoRxiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.32942/x26h45},
  url = {https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/14996/},
  note = {CC BY-ND 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Acoustic Vector Sensing of Blue and Fin Whale Habitat Occupancy off Central California
AU  - John P Ryan
AU  - Paul Leary
AU  - Kevin Smith
AU  - Jarrod Santora
AU  - Kelly J Benoit-Bird
AU  - William K Oestreich
AU  - John E Joseph
AU  - Tetyana Margolina
AU  - John Calambokidis
AU  - James Fahlbusch
AU  - Andrew DeVogelaere
AU  - Brandon Southall
AU  - Jeremy Goldbogen
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/15
PB  - EcoEvoRxiv
DO  - 10.32942/x26h45
UR  - https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/14996/
AB  - Temporally varying geographic distributions of whale populations are difficult to visually monitor across large marine ecosystems. Acoustic vector sensing (AVS) of the powerful calls produced by baleen whales enables continuous monitoring over large areas with spatial information contained in the bearing estimates to whales. Using three years of AVS data in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, we examine the habitat occupancy of endangered blue and fin whale populations. The calls of fin whales persistently originated primarily in offshore deep-water (ODW) habitat, shifting into shelf / slope habitat only occasionally. The calls of blue whales originated primarily in shelf / slope habitat. However, detection of blue whales in ODW habitat increased significantly across the study period with stronger wind-driven upwelling that increased krill abundance and expanded foraging habitat. This expansion increased both the spatial overlap of blue and fin whales and the exposure of blue whales to ship strike risk. AVS is an effective method of passive acoustic monitoring for informing marine ecological research and conservation.
ER  -

Abstract

Related

Cite