Memory and resource tracking drive blue whale migrations

Edited by Mary E. Power, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved January 9, 2019 (received for review November 6, 2018)
February 25, 2019
116 (12) 5582-5587
Commentary
Migrating whales depend on memory to exploit reliable resources
William F. Fagan

Significance

The causes and consequences of animal migration have received substantial research attention, yet the mechanisms underlying this global phenomenon remain largely untested in marine systems. By combining 10 years of satellite tracking data on blue whales with simultaneous remotely-sensed oceanographic measurements in the North Pacific, we demonstrate that both long-term memory and resource tracking play key roles in the long-distance migrations of marine megafauna. These findings have important implications for long-lived species across systems and taxa, as long-range migrants conditioned by historical environmental processes may struggle in response to rapid environmental change. Finally, our study reveals that ecological theory of animal migrations is conserved across marine and terrestrial systems.

Abstract

In terrestrial systems, the green wave hypothesis posits that migrating animals can enhance foraging opportunities by tracking phenological variation in high-quality forage across space (i.e., “resource waves”). To track resource waves, animals may rely on proximate cues and/or memory of long-term average phenologies. Although there is growing evidence of resource tracking in terrestrial migrants, such drivers remain unevaluated in migratory marine megafauna. Here we present a test of the green wave hypothesis in a marine system. We compare 10 years of blue whale movement data with the timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom resulting in increased prey availability in the California Current Ecosystem, allowing us to investigate resource tracking both contemporaneously (response to proximate cues) and based on climatological conditions (memory) during migrations. Blue whales closely tracked the long-term average phenology of the spring bloom, but did not track contemporaneous green-up. In addition, blue whale foraging locations were characterized by low long-term habitat variability and high long-term productivity compared with contemporaneous measurements. Results indicate that memory of long-term average conditions may have a previously underappreciated role in driving migratory movements of long-lived species in marine systems, and suggest that these animals may struggle to respond to rapid deviations from historical mean environmental conditions. Results further highlight that an ecological theory of migration is conserved across marine and terrestrial systems. Understanding the drivers of animal migration is critical for assessing how environmental changes will affect highly mobile fauna at a global scale.

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Data Availability

Data deposition: The data reported in this paper have been deposited in the Movebank Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.5ph88fk2).

Acknowledgments

We thank the many people who assisted with tagging and tag development from the Marine Mammal Institute, as well as the various crews of the R/V Pacific Storm. We thank our organizations for supporting our time in writing this manuscript. We are grateful to Alexandre Zerbini and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments that strengthened this manuscript. E.O.A. was supported by the Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium (NASA Grant NNX15AI08H). J.A.G. and M.S.S. were supported in part by a Terman Fellowship from Stanford University. Support for blue whale satellite tagging and data acquisition includes the National Geographic Society, Tagging of Pacific Pelagics program of the Census of Marine Life, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Moore Foundation, Packard Foundation, Office of Naval Research (Grants 9610608, 0010085, and 0310862), NASA (Grant NNX11AP71G), and private donors to Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute endowment.

Supporting Information

Appendix (PDF)

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Information & Authors

Information

Published in

Go to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Vol. 116 | No. 12
March 19, 2019
PubMed: 30804188

Classifications

Data Availability

Data deposition: The data reported in this paper have been deposited in the Movebank Data Repository (https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.5ph88fk2).

Submission history

Published online: February 25, 2019
Published in issue: March 19, 2019

Keywords

  1. marine megafauna
  2. migration
  3. movement ecology
  4. resource wave
  5. spatial memory

Acknowledgments

We thank the many people who assisted with tagging and tag development from the Marine Mammal Institute, as well as the various crews of the R/V Pacific Storm. We thank our organizations for supporting our time in writing this manuscript. We are grateful to Alexandre Zerbini and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments that strengthened this manuscript. E.O.A. was supported by the Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium (NASA Grant NNX15AI08H). J.A.G. and M.S.S. were supported in part by a Terman Fellowship from Stanford University. Support for blue whale satellite tagging and data acquisition includes the National Geographic Society, Tagging of Pacific Pelagics program of the Census of Marine Life, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Moore Foundation, Packard Foundation, Office of Naval Research (Grants 9610608, 0010085, and 0310862), NASA (Grant NNX11AP71G), and private donors to Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute endowment.

Notes

This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
See Commentary on page 5217.

Authors

Affiliations

Environmental Research Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Monterey, CA 93940;
Elliott L. Hazen
Environmental Research Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Monterey, CA 93940;
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064;
Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071;
Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071;
Matthew S. Savoca
Hopkins Marine Station, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA 93950;
Jeremy A. Goldbogen
Hopkins Marine Station, Department of Biology, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA 93950;
Steven J. Bograd
Environmental Research Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Monterey, CA 93940;
Michael G. Jacox
Environmental Research Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Monterey, CA 93940;
Physical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305;
Ladd M. Irvine
Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, Newport, OR 97365;
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331
Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, Newport, OR 97365;
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331
Bruce R. Mate
Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University, Newport, OR 97365;
Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331

Notes

1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: [email protected].
Author contributions: B.A. and E.O.A. conceived the study; B.A., E.L.H., E.O.A., M.S.S., J.A.G., S.J.B., and M.G.J. designed the research; L.M.I., D.M.P., and B.R.M. collected and contributed data; B.A. performed analyses; and B.A. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all authors.

Competing Interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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    Memory and resource tracking drive blue whale migrations
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    • Vol. 116
    • No. 12
    • pp. 5199-5831

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