Acoustic signature reveals blue whales tune life-history transitions to oceanographic conditions

British Ecological Society

In this podcast for Functional Ecology, Assistant Editor, Frank Harris, sits down with William K. Oestreich—a postdoctoral fellow at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, USA—to discuss his recently published paper ‘Acoustic signature reveals blue whales tune life history transitions to oceanographic conditions’. Will’s paper suggests that blue whales use flexible cues, perhaps including individual sensing of food availability and social information from other individuals (blue whale songs are audible over hundreds of kilometres) to match timing of feeding and migration with ecosystem processes. This flexibility could be key to survival of this endangered population in an era of rapid global change Article: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.14013 Plain language summary: https://fesummaries.wordpress.com/2022/02/02/blue-whales-flexibly-time-feeding-and-migration-to-match-ocean-conditions/ Transcript: https://functionalecologists.com/2023/03/15/acoustic-signature-reveals-blue-whales-tune-life-history-transitions-to-oceanographic-conditions-podcast-transcript/