My co-authors and I are glad to announce our new publication: Romero, M.A., Coscarella, M.A., Adams, G.D., Pedraza, J.C., González, R., Crespo, E.A. 2022. Historical reconstruction of the population dynamics of southern right whales in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean. Scientific Reports 12, 3324. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07370-6
Abstract: Understanding the recovery of whale populations is critical for developing population-management and conservation strategies. The southern right whale (SRW) Eubalena australis was one of the baleen whale species that has experienced centuries of exploitation. We assess here for the first time the population dynamics of the SRW from the southwestern Atlantic Ocean at the regional level to measure numerically the effect of whaling and estimate the population trend and recovery level after depletion. We reconstructed the catch history of whaling for the period 1670–1973 by an extensive review of different literature sources and developed a Bayesian state-space model to estimate the demographic parameters. The population trajectory indicated that the pre-exploitation abundance was close to 58,000 individuals (median = 58,212; 95% CI = 33,329–100,920). The abundance dropped to its lowest abundance levels in the 1830s when fewer than 2,000 individuals remained. The current median population abundance was estimated at 4,742 whales (95% CI = 3,853–6,013), suggesting that the SRW population remains small relative to its pre-exploitation abundance (median depletion P2021 8.7%). We estimated that close to 36% of the SRW population visits the waters of the Península Valdés, the main breeding ground, every year. Our results provide insights into the severity of the whaling operation in the southwestern Atlantic along with the population´s response at low densities, thus contributing to understand the observed differences in population trends over the distributional range of the species worldwide. You can download the open-access publication here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-07370-6 Best regards, María Alejandra Romero -- Dra. María Alejandra Romero Centro de Investigación Aplicada y Transferencia Tecnológica en Recursos Marinos "Almirante Storni" - CONICET, Güemes 1030 – (8520) San Antonio Oeste, Río Negro. Argentina. Escuela Superior de Ciencias Marinas - Universidad Nacional del Comahue (IBMP-UNCo), San Martín 247 – (8520) San Antonio Oeste, Río Negro. Argentina. Tel/Fax: 54 (2934) 421002/430764 Email: romero....@gmail.com, arom...@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar
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