LSIESP NEWS – SUMMER 2021
LSIESP Researchers Selected to Present Research at SMM Conference
We are pleased to announce that several LSIESP Researchers and their collaborating colleagues have been selected to present their gray whale research findings at the forthcoming
Society for Marine Mammalogy’s 24th Biennial Conference in Palm Beach Florida in December 2021
(https://marinemammalscience.org/conference/).
Seven presentations by LSIESP researchers and their colleagues will be presented as oral talks or posters at the SMM 2021 conference. All of these present findings that are relevant to the ongoing gray whale Unusual Mortality Event (UME) that began in winter 2019 and continued through summer 2021. Early observations by LSIESP Researchers in Laguna San Ignacio and Bahía Magdalena detected a significant decrease in the number of calves seen in these areas, along with increases in the number of “skinny” whales during the 2018 to 2021 winters. Aerial photogrammetry from UAV-Drones obtained high resolution photographs of individual whales in Laguna San Ignacio, including female-calf pairs, confirming trends of decreasing body mass, and declining body condition which are believed to have contributed to the increased mortality and stranding of gray whales throughout their ranges during the UME ( see https://www.sanignaciograywhales.org/new-publication-poor-body-condition-associated-with-gray-whale-mortality-event/) .
We congratulate our researchers and their colleagues for being recognized by the prestigious Society for Marine Mammalogy, and for their collective contributions that grow our body of knowledge of gray whale biology, behavior, a response to environmental changes. Please take the time to review their presentation Abstracts for more details on these important findings.
New Doctoral Graduate
We are pleased to announce that LSIESP acoustic researcher Ludovic Tenorio’s will present his oral defense to complete his Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography on July 29, 2021. Ludovic also recently published in the on-line Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) a new paper entitled “Using anisotropic and narrow band ambient noise for continuous measurements of relative clock drift between independent acoustic recorders” based on his research in Laguna San Ignacio (https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0004996). Ludovic’s major professor and academic advisor, Dr. Aaron Thode and his graduate students have researched marine acoustics and gray whale vocalizations in Laguna San Ignacio since 2005. Ludovic has accepted an National Research Council (NRC) Post-Doctoral position at the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, Florida beginning this fall. We wish him all the success in this next episode of his career.
Your Support Makes It All Possible!
It is the generous ongoing support of our individual and organizational donors that make possible this research and the new knowledge that it produces, and also provides the support for our researchers as they continue to build their careers as our next generation of marine scientists and conservationists. If you are already a supporter, we thank you! If you are new to our program, we urge you to become a supporter of the Laguna San Ignacio Ecosystem Science Program’s gray whale research efforts. Please visit our donation page on our website at:
https://www.sanignaciograywhales.org/donate/
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