Science Connect Newsletter

The Science Connect newsletter is distributed quarterly with alternate issues highlighting research from the East and West Coast centers and offices. Links to these and other recent protected species publications with NOAA authors are included. Visit our publications repository for a complete list of all the publications.

2020

Issue 1

Highlights

• Bycatch in gillnet fisheries continues to threaten critically endangered small cetaceans
• New challenges for fisheries management: where recovering protected species, increasing habitat variability, and commercial fisheries meet
• A look at the "Deep Sea Refugia Hypothesis": Do deeper waters provide refuge for corals during heat stress?

Issue 2

Highlights

• A global assessment of environmental drivers of biodiversity and a call for increased collaboration
• Assessing the fate of sea turtles that initially survive incidental capture in bottom trawl fisheries
• Year-round passive acoustic monitoring sheds new light on seasonal distribution and foraging ecology of Cook Inlet beluga whales

Issue 3

Highlights

• Special Edition: The National Protected Species Toolbox Initiative

2019

Issue 1

Highlights

• Population consequences of disturbance by offshore oil and gas activity for endangered sperm whales (Farmer et al. 2018)
• Characterizing sex ratios of sea turtle populations (Shertzer et al. 2018)
• Environmental conditions and herbivore biomass determine coral reef benthic community composition: implications for quantitative baselines (Robinson et al. 2018)
• Novel anelloviruses identified in buccal swabs of Antarctic fur seals (Crane et al. 2018)

Issue 2

Highlights

• Translating marine animal tracking data into conservation policy and management (Hays et al 2019)
• Animal cultures matter for conservation (Brakes et al. 2019)
• Skeletal records of bleaching reveal different thermal thresholds of Pacifc coral reef assemblages (Mollica et al. 2019)
• Lessons from seabird conservation in Alaskan longline fisheries (Melvin et al. 2019)

Issue 3

Highlights

• Characterizing watercraft-related mortality of sea turtles in Florida (Foley et al. 2019)
• Atlantic salmon recovery informing and informed by ecosystem-based fisheries management (Hare et al. 2019)
• Climate vulnerability assessment for Pacific salmon and steelhead in the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (Crozier et al. 2019)
• Memory resource tracking drive blue whale migrations (Abrahms et al. 2019)

2018

Issue 1

Highlights

• Long-term passive acoustic recordings track the changing distribution of North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) from 2004 to 2014 (Davis et al. 2017)
• Sea turtle bycatch mitigation in US Longline Fisheries (Swimmer et al. 2017)
• Comparative application of trophic ecosystem models to evaluate drivers of endangered Hawaiian monk seal populations (Weijerman et al. 2017)
• Brevetoxin exposure in sea turtles in south Texas (USA) during Karenia brevis red tide (Walker et al. 2018)

Issue 2

Highlights

• Model recommendations meet management reality: implementation and evaluation of a network-informed vaccination effort for endangered Hawaiian monk seals (Robinson et al. 2018)
• Abundance and population status of Ross Sea killer whales (Orcinus orca, type C) in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica: evidence for impact by commercial fishing? (Pitman et al. 2018) 
• Familial social structure and socially driven genetic differentiation in Hawaiian short-finned pilot whales (Van Cise et al. 2017)
• Environmental warming and feminisation of one of the largest sea turtle populations in the world (Jensen et al. 2018)

Issue 3

Highlights

• Local biomass baselines and the recovery potential for Hawaiian coral reef fish communities (Gorospe et al. 2018)
• Inbreeding in an endangered killer whale population (Ford et al. 2018)
• Impact of exceptional growth rates on estimations of life-stage duration in Hawaiian green sea turtles (Murakawa et al. 2018)
• Performance of manned and unmanned aerial surveys to collect visual data and imagery for estimating Arctic cetacean density and associated uncertainty (Ferguson et al. 2018)

Issue 4

Highlights

• Loggerhead turtles are good ocean-observers in stratified mid-latitude regions (Patel et al. 2018)
• Movements and dive behavior of a toothfish-depredating killer and sperm whale  (Tower et al. 2018)
• Genomic signatures of population bottleneck and recovery in Northwest Atlantic pinnipeds (Cammen et al. 2018) 
• Gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains (Cinner et al. 2018)

2017

Issue 1

Highlights

• Differential effects of human activity on Hawaiian spinner dolphins in their resting bays (Heenehan et al. 2016)
• Ontogenetic shifts in diet and habitat of juvenile green turtles in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico (Howell et al. 2016)
• Can you hear me here? Managing acoustic habitat in US waters (Hatch et al. 2016)
• Exposure of cetaceans to petroleum products following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (Aichinger et al. 2017)

Issue 2

Highlights

• Human-mediated evolution in a threatened species? Juvenile life-history changes in Snake River salmon (Waples et al. 2017)
• Assessing the risk of chronic shipping noise to baleen whales off Southern California (Redfern et al. 2017)
• Estimates of Chinook salmon consumption in Washington State inland waters by four marine mammal predators from 1970 to 2015 (Chasco et al. 2017)
• Intrapopulation variability in the timing of ontogenetic habitat shifts in sea turtles revealed using δ15N values from bone growth rings (Turner Tomaszewicz et al. 2017)

Issue 3

Highlights

• Assessing the diet of North American Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) off the West Greenland coast using gut content and stable isotope analyses (Dixon et al. 2017)
• Spatial distribution and dive behavior of Gulf of Mexico Bryde's whales: potential risk of vessel strikes and fisheries interactions (Soldevilla et al. 2017)
• Defining risk variable causing gas embolism in loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) caught in trawls and gillnets (Fahlman et al. 2017)
• Variability in age and size at maturation, reproductive longevity, and long-term growth dynamics for Kemp's ridley sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico (Avens et al. 2017)

Issue 4

Highlights

• Genetic fingerprinting reveals natal origins of male leatherback turtles encountered in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea (Roden et al. 2017)
• Natal foraging philopatry in eastern Pacific hawksbill turtles (Gaos et al. 2017)
• Determining potential adverse effects in marine fish exposed to pharmaceuticals and personal care products with the fish plasma model and whole-body tissue concentrations (Meador et al. 2017)
• Should I stay or should I go? Modelling year‐round habitat suitability and drivers of residency for fin whales in the California Current (Scales et al. 2017)

2016

Issue 1

Highlights

• Summer diving and haul‐out behavior of leopard seals (Hydrurga leptonyx) near mesopredator breeding colonies at Livingston Island, Antarctic Peninsula (Krause et al. 2016)
• Estimation of a Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) Population’s Diet Using Sequencing Analysis of DNA from Feces (Ford et al. 2016)
• Food limitation of sea lion pups and the decline of forage off central and southern California (McClatchie et al. 2016)
• Crustose coralline algal diseases in the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (Vargas-Ángel 2016)

Issue 2

Highlights

• First records of the short-finned pilot whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) in Massachusetts, USA: 1980 and 2011 (Pugliares et al. 2016)
• Climate Impacts on Sea Turtle Breeding Phenology in Greece and Associated Foraging Habitats in the Wider Mediterranean Region (Patel et al. 2016)
• Nonlethal batch identification of Atlantic Salmon using coded wire tags (Goulette and Lipsky 2016)
• Validation of back‐calculated body lengths and timing of growth mark deposition in Hawaiian green sea turtles (Goshe et al. 2016)

Issue 3

Highlights

• Passive acoustic monitoring of the decline of Mexico’s critically endangered vaquita (Jaramillo-Legorreta et al. 2017)
• Consistent Extinction Risk Assessment under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (Boyd et al. 2016)
• Predicting overlap between drift gillnet fishing and leatherback turtle habitat in the California Current Ecosystem (Eguchi et al. 2016)