Description
Original provider: Marijke N. de Boer Dataset credits: Marijke N. de Boer Abstract: Minke whales and other marine mammals were recorded in the central North Sea in an area characterised by frontal features and high productivity northeast of the Dogger Bank (4677 km2). Survey efforts were carried out from 28 March to 2 July 2007, at a finer scale than in earlier studies in the region, using 2 vessels as platforms of opportunity and a dedicated line- transect survey vessel following distance sampling methods. The high density of whales indicated that this offshore bank slope is an important spring habitat for minke whales in the North Sea. In total, 77 sightings of minke whales comprising 130 individuals were recorded. The peak density of minke whales was estimated to be 0.029 whales km–2 (minimum estimate, 95% CI: 0.012 to 0.070) in May. During peak abundance, the minke whales temporarily congregated in the area, suggesting that the whales were taking advantage of the local spring abundance of sandeels. The density found was higher than previous studies have suggested for the central North Sea. The results correspond to recent observations of minke whale redistribution within the North Sea, and these may be related to a decline in sandeel availability elsewhere in the North Sea. Offshore banks that aggregate prey may therefore become increasingly important feeding habitats for minke whales and other top predators in the North Sea. The observed habitat preference of minke whales along this offshore bank appeared to be similar to that observed in coastal areas, and this suggests some degree of generality regarding the preference for this type of habitat. Purpose: As part of a geophysical seismic survey, marine mammals observations were carried out from three vessels: one seismic vessel, one supply vessel operating well ahead from the seismic vessel. The third vessel, MV ‘Andfjord’, carried out a dedicated Line Transect (LT) survey (23 April to 17 May). The LT vessel was surveying at distances of ≥20 km away from the geophysical vessel and followed predetermined line transects placed randomly in a zigzag pattern in the central (German) part of the survey area.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 165 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Marijke N. de Boer. 2010. Spring distribution and density of minke whale Balaenoptera acutorostrata along an offshore bank in the central North Sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series. Vol. 408: 265–274.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is OBIS-SEAMAP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 943e8915-6a32-47bf-afc5-a8f26f21e69f. OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.
Keywords
Occurrence,Marine Animal Survey,Marine Biology,Marine mammals,Visual Sighting,Vessel; Observation; Occurrence
External data
The resource data is also available in other formats
| OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page | https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/2257 UTF-8 Interactive map |
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| FGDC Metadata | https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/2257/xml UTF-8 XML |
Contacts
- Owner ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Metadata Provider ●
- Distributor
Geographic Coverage
North Sea
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [53.155, 3.084], North East [56.264, 4.581] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
| Order | Cetacea (Cetaceans), Cetacea (Cetaceans) |
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| Family | Phocidae (Earless seals), Delphinidae (Dolphins) |
| Genus | Lagenorhynchus (White-beaked dolphins) |
| Species | Lagenorhynchus acutus (Atlantic white-sided dolphin), Tursiops truncatus (Common bottlenose dolphin), Phoca vitulina (Harbor seal), Halichoerus grypus (Atlantic gray seal), Phocoena phocoena (Harbor porpoise), Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback whale), Balaenoptera acutorostrata (Common minke whale), Lagenorhynchus albirostris (White-beaked dolphin) |
Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 2007-03-31 / 2007-07-02 |
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Project Data
No Description available
| Title | Cetacean sigthings in North Sea |
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| Funding | NA |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Owner
Sampling Methods
NA
| Study Extent | NA |
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Method step description:
- NA
Collection Data
| Collection Name | zd_2257 |
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| Collection Identifier | zd_2257 |
| Parent Collection Identifier | OBIS-SEAMAP |
Additional Metadata
marine, harvested by iOBIS
| Purpose | As part of a geophysical seismic survey, marine mammals observations were carried out from three vessels: one seismic vessel, one supply vessel operating well ahead from the seismic vessel. The third vessel, MV ‘Andfjord’, carried out a dedicated Line Transect (LT) survey (23 April to 17 May). The LT vessel was surveying at distances of ≥20 km away from the geophysical vessel and followed predetermined line transects placed randomly in a zigzag pattern in the central (German) part of the survey area. |
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| Alternative Identifiers | https://ipt.env.duke.edu/resource?r=zd_2257 |