Modeling of Habitat and Foraging Behavior of Beaked Whales in the Southern California Bight.

摘要

The overall goal of this project is to improve our understanding of beaked whale distribution and foraging behavior and to describe inter-specific differences. We are developing habitat models for multiple beaked whale species in the Southern California Bight using passive acoustic encounters. Data from line transect surveys and autonomous recorders are compared with dynamic and static oceanographic habitat variables. We aim to compare habitat models using acoustic line transect data with those generated using autonomous acoustic recorder detections. We intend to model the foraging behavior of beaked whales with respect to spatio-temporal occurrence on a diel or seasonal basis and in correlation to oceanographic or geographic variables.