{"title":"Whisperers of whales wander: A directional statistical investigation of whales’ migration influenced by geomagnetic, ocean current, and celestial cues","authors":"Debashis Chatterjee , Prithwish Ghosh","doi":"10.1016/j.jnc.2025.127011","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding the migration patterns of blue and humpback whales is essential for devising effective conservation and management plans to maintain a balanced ocean ecosystem. This study investigates the migration patterns of these whales along the western coast of North America using a comprehensive dataset that includes longitude, latitude, changes in path direction, magnetic inclination, declination change, and date. We applied a mixture of von Mises–Fisher distributions for directional changes in whale paths. Our analysis indicates that the directional changes of blue and humpback whales can be best represented by a mixture of nine von Mises Fisher distributions, highlighting significant variation in their migration directions. Additionally, we introduce a novel circular–circular regression model to examine the relationship between the whales’ directional changes and various environmental factors, such as magnetic inclination, declination, sun and moon positions, and ocean currents. The hypothesis tests reveal a statistically significant non-zero correlation between the directional changes of the whales and the environmental factors considered. The results emphasize that the correlation between solar position and geomagnetic changes has the most pronounced effect on blue and humpback whales. The findings underscore the complexity of whale migration and the influence of environmental variables, providing valuable insights for conservation efforts and furthering our understanding of these species behaviors.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54898,"journal":{"name":"Journal for Nature Conservation","volume":"88 ","pages":"Article 127011"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal for Nature Conservation","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1617138125001888","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Understanding the migration patterns of blue and humpback whales is essential for devising effective conservation and management plans to maintain a balanced ocean ecosystem. This study investigates the migration patterns of these whales along the western coast of North America using a comprehensive dataset that includes longitude, latitude, changes in path direction, magnetic inclination, declination change, and date. We applied a mixture of von Mises–Fisher distributions for directional changes in whale paths. Our analysis indicates that the directional changes of blue and humpback whales can be best represented by a mixture of nine von Mises Fisher distributions, highlighting significant variation in their migration directions. Additionally, we introduce a novel circular–circular regression model to examine the relationship between the whales’ directional changes and various environmental factors, such as magnetic inclination, declination, sun and moon positions, and ocean currents. The hypothesis tests reveal a statistically significant non-zero correlation between the directional changes of the whales and the environmental factors considered. The results emphasize that the correlation between solar position and geomagnetic changes has the most pronounced effect on blue and humpback whales. The findings underscore the complexity of whale migration and the influence of environmental variables, providing valuable insights for conservation efforts and furthering our understanding of these species behaviors.
期刊介绍:
The Journal for Nature Conservation addresses concepts, methods and techniques for nature conservation. This international and interdisciplinary journal encourages collaboration between scientists and practitioners, including the integration of biodiversity issues with social and economic concepts. Therefore, conceptual, technical and methodological papers, as well as reviews, research papers, and short communications are welcomed from a wide range of disciplines, including theoretical ecology, landscape ecology, restoration ecology, ecological modelling, and others, provided that there is a clear connection and immediate relevance to nature conservation.
Manuscripts without any immediate conservation context, such as inventories, distribution modelling, genetic studies, animal behaviour, plant physiology, will not be considered for this journal; though such data may be useful for conservationists and managers in the future, this is outside of the current scope of the journal.