Long-term marine mammal occurrence in the Distributed Biological Observatory 2010–2015

Abstract

The Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) is a set of eight biological hotspot areas spanning latitudinally from the Northern Bering Sea to the Canadian Beaufort Sea. The DBO is an international collaboration between researchers from the United States, Japan, Canada, China, South Korea, and Russia that work in the Alaskan Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort Seas; all research vessels passing through one of the DBO regions collect biophysical data (i.e., temperature, salinity, sea ice concentration and thickness, chlorophyll, nutrients, and zooplankton occurrence) along a pre-described line of sampling stations. Since the pilot study in 2010, and with funding from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the Marine Mammal Laboratory at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center of NOAA has maintained passive acoustic recorder moorings at two of the DBO regions, colocated with oceanographic moorings from the Pacific Marine Science Center (P. Stabeno). This coverage was expanded to five DBO regions in 2012, again with colocated oceanographic moorings at four of the sites. Here, an interannual comparison of the long-term mooring results from gray, bowhead, beluga, humpback, and killer whales, walrus, ribbon and bearded seals, and vessel and seismic airgun noise will be presented and compared with the sampled biophysical data.