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Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Segre, PS; Gough, WT; Roualdes, EA; Cade, DE; Czapanskiy, MF; Fahlbusch, J; Kahane-Rapport, SR; Oestreich, WK; Bejder, L; Bierlich, KC ...
Published in: The Journal of experimental biology
March 2022

Despite their enormous size, whales make their living as voracious predators. To catch their much smaller, more maneuverable prey, they have developed several unique locomotor strategies that require high energetic input, high mechanical power output and a surprising degree of agility. To better understand how body size affects maneuverability at the largest scale, we used bio-logging data, aerial photogrammetry and a high-throughput approach to quantify the maneuvering performance of seven species of free-swimming baleen whale. We found that as body size increases, absolute maneuvering performance decreases: larger whales use lower accelerations and perform slower pitch-changes, rolls and turns than smaller species. We also found that baleen whales exhibit positive allometry of maneuvering performance: relative to their body size, larger whales use higher accelerations, and perform faster pitch-changes, rolls and certain types of turns than smaller species. However, not all maneuvers were impacted by body size in the same way, and we found that larger whales behaviorally adjust for their decreased agility by using turns that they can perform more effectively. The positive allometry of maneuvering performance suggests that large whales have compensated for their increased body size by evolving more effective control surfaces and by preferentially selecting maneuvers that play to their strengths.

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Published In

The Journal of experimental biology

DOI

EISSN

1477-9145

ISSN

0022-0949

Publication Date

March 2022

Volume

225

Issue

5

Start / End Page

jeb243224

Related Subject Headings

  • Whales
  • Swimming
  • Physiology
  • Motivation
  • Body Size
  • Animals
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 11 Medical and Health Sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences
 

Citation

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Segre, P. S., Gough, W. T., Roualdes, E. A., Cade, D. E., Czapanskiy, M. F., Fahlbusch, J., … Goldbogen, J. A. (2022). Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 225(5), jeb243224. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.243224
Segre, Paolo S., William T. Gough, Edward A. Roualdes, David E. Cade, Max F. Czapanskiy, James Fahlbusch, Shirel R. Kahane-Rapport, et al. “Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations.The Journal of Experimental Biology 225, no. 5 (March 2022): jeb243224. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.243224.
Segre PS, Gough WT, Roualdes EA, Cade DE, Czapanskiy MF, Fahlbusch J, et al. Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations. The Journal of experimental biology. 2022 Mar;225(5):jeb243224.
Segre, Paolo S., et al. “Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations.The Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 225, no. 5, Mar. 2022, p. jeb243224. Epmc, doi:10.1242/jeb.243224.
Segre PS, Gough WT, Roualdes EA, Cade DE, Czapanskiy MF, Fahlbusch J, Kahane-Rapport SR, Oestreich WK, Bejder L, Bierlich KC, Burrows JA, Calambokidis J, Chenoweth EM, di Clemente J, Durban JW, Fearnbach H, Fish FE, Friedlaender AS, Hegelund P, Johnston DW, Nowacek DP, Oudejans MG, Penry GS, Potvin J, Simon M, Stanworth A, Straley JM, Szabo A, Videsen SKA, Visser F, Weir CR, Wiley DN, Goldbogen JA. Scaling of maneuvering performance in baleen whales: larger whales outperform expectations. The Journal of experimental biology. 2022 Mar;225(5):jeb243224.
Journal cover image

Published In

The Journal of experimental biology

DOI

EISSN

1477-9145

ISSN

0022-0949

Publication Date

March 2022

Volume

225

Issue

5

Start / End Page

jeb243224

Related Subject Headings

  • Whales
  • Swimming
  • Physiology
  • Motivation
  • Body Size
  • Animals
  • 31 Biological sciences
  • 11 Medical and Health Sciences
  • 06 Biological Sciences