Sentences with phrase «different whale populations»

Using data generated from more than 3,000 skin samples from individual whales ranging from the South Atlantic to the Indian Oceans, the research team has uncovered previously unknown degrees of relatedness between different whale populations.

Not exact matches

Laidre's team looked at what is known about marine mammal populations that play a key role in Arctic ecosystems and human communities, focusing on polar bears, beluga whales, narwhals, bowhead whales, walrus, and six different seal species.

Palumbi used two different types of gene in the sampled whale meat to derive his estimated pre-whaling population estimate of between 500,000 and one million.

Overall, the study's data from mitochondrial DNA — different from nuclear DNA in that it helps scientists trace maternal lineages — reveal that population structure in humpback whales is largely driven by female whales that return annually to the same breeding grounds and by the early experience of calves that accompany their mothers on their first round - trip migration to the feeding grounds.

The occasional genetic interchange between populations also seemed to correlate with feeding grounds with high densities of krill, places where whales from different populations are likely to move vast distances and come into contact with other populations.

«Killer whales have been thought of by some as something like the poster child» for the process, «because there are multiple genetically distinct populations [which have not yet been formally described as separate species] with different prey preferences in the North Pacific and Antarctic,» says Phillip Morin, a cetacean biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego, California, who was not involved in the new study.

The samples were then analyzed with a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), used to amplify specific nuclear «microsatellites» for statistically measuring gene flow between the different populations and subpopulations located in the western South Atlantic (Breeding Stock A) and the eastern South Atlantic and Indian Ocean populations (Breeding Stocks B and C, and the Arabian Sea humpback whale population, respectively).

The authors point out that the findings support previous observations of individual male whales moving between populations in different ocean basins, and that subpopulations from both regions could share the same feeding ground in Antarctic waters.

When diving here, you can see eleven different species of sharks, 479 species of fish, and large pelagics such as jacks, manta ray, tuna, and whale sharks.It also has the highest population density for white tip reef sharks!

The Sea of Cortez has more consistently large populations of many different whale species, including the endangered blue and fin whales.

Because of the considerable scientific uncertainty over the numbers of whales of different species and in different geographical stocks, the International Whaling Commission decided in 1989 that it would be better not to give whale population figures except for those species / stocks which have been assessed in some detail.