Ocean & Coastal Management (2017)
Throughout their range, marine mammals are vulnerable to incidental capture in fishing gear. Bycatch is a particularly important issue for cetaceans, which generally have lower potential rates of population growth…
Resilience of harbor porpoises to anthropogenic disturbance: Must they really feed continuously?
Hoekendijk, Jeroen P. A.; Spitz, Jerome; Read, Andrew J.; Leopold, Mardik F.; Fontaine, Michael C.
Marine Mammal Science (2017)
...Recently, Wisniewska et al. (2016) used high-resolution digital acoustic tags (DTAGs) to monitor the foraging behavior of five harbor porpoises in Danish waters. This approach provided detailed observations on the…
Patterns of cetacean vaginal folds yield insights into functionality
Orbach, Dara N.; Marshall, Christopher D.; Mesnick, Sarah L.; Würsig, Bernd
PLOS ONE (2017)
Complex foldings of the vaginal wall are unique to some cetaceans and artiodactyls and are of unknown function(s). The patterns of vaginal length and cumulative vaginal fold length were assessed…
Mixing of porpoise ecotypes in southwestern UK waters revealed by genetic profiling
Fontaine, Michaël C.; Thatcher, Oliver; Ray, Nicolas; Piry, Sylvain; Brownlow, Andrew; Davison, Nicholas J.; Jepson, Paul; Deaville, Rob; Goodman, Simon J.
Royal Society Open Science (2017)
Contact zones between ecotypes are windows for understanding how species may react to climate changes. Here, we analysed the fine-scale genetic and morphological variation in harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) around…
Comparative physiology of vocal musculature in two odontocetes, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and the harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
Thometz, Nicole M.; Dearolf, Jennifer L.; Dunkin, Robin C.; Noren, Dawn P.; Holt, Marla M.; Sims, Olivia C.; Cathey, Brandon C.; Williams, Terrie M.
Journal of Comparative Physiology B (2017)
The mechanism by which odontocetes produce sound is unique among mammals. To gain insight into the physiological properties that support sound production in toothed whales, we examined myoglobin content ([Mb]),…
An unusual interaction between bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and a harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
Tonay, Arda M.; Dede, Ayhan; Öztürk, Ayaka Amaha
Journal of the Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment (2017)
This short communication reports an observation of unusual non-agonistic interactions between a juvenile harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) and a group of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the Marmara Sea on…
Silent porpoise: Potential sleeping behaviour identified in wild harbour porpoises
Wright, Andrew J.; Akamatsu, Tomonari; Mouritsen, Kim N.; Sveegaard, Signe; Dietz, Rune; Teilmann, Jonas
Animal Behaviour (2017)
All animals sleep and it is essential for maintaining optimal brain function. However, cetaceans engage in the unusual practice of unihemispherical sleep, where only half of their brain sleeps at…
Marine noise budgets in practice
Merchant, Nathan D.; Faulkner, Rebecca C.; Martinez, Roi
Conservation Letters (2017)
Many countries have made statutory commitments to ensure that underwater noise pollution is at levels which do not harm marine ecosystems. Nevertheless, coordinated action to manage cumulative noise levels is…
Response to “Resilience of harbor porpoises to anthropogenic disturbance: Must they really feed continuously?”
Wisniewska, Danuta Maria; Johnson, Mark; Teilmann, Jonas; Rojano-Doñate, Laia; Shearer, Jeanne; Sveegaard, Signe; Miller, Lee A.; Siebert, Ursula; Madsen, Peter Teglberg
Marine Mammal Science (2017)
...There is, unfortunately, no unbiased way to assess the prey preference and dietary intake of free-ranging marine mammals like harbor porpoises. Although the traditional approach involving stomach content analysis of…
Hearing thresholds of a male and a female harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
Kastelein, Ronald A.; Helder-Hoek, Lean; Van de Voorde, Shirley
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (2017)
To study intra-species variability in audiograms, the hearing sensitivity of a six-year-old female and a three-year-old male harbor porpoise was measured by using a standard psycho-acoustic technique under low ambient…