[MARMAM] Society for Marine Mammalogy Small Grants in Aid of Research Announcement

[Douglas Wartzok]

The Society for Marine Mammalogy would like to inform eligible members (see 
below) that this year's Small Grants in aid of Research application window 
opens on 1 June 2017. Applications will be accepted during the entire month of 
June. The Committee of Scientific Advisors will review applications and make 
recommendations on funding with decisions announced in early September 2017. 
The awards are up to US $2,000. All three of the following eligibility 
requirements must be met:

1. Be a member of the Society for Marine Mammalogy.
2. Be a national of a low-income country (see the Small Grant web 
page
 for a definition of low-income countries). Preference is given to early career 
researchers such as students and researchers with less than 5 years 
post-doctoral experience.
3. Be conducting research in a low-income country

The Small Grant web 
page
 provides full information, links to past successful applications, a list of 
recipients from prior years and their completed project reports, and a link to 
the application itself. Please be mindful of the word limits in the various 
sections of the application.

Last year twelve of 47 applicants received funding from $1,000 to $1,500, the 
maximum in 2016.

For technical questions regarding the online application, please email the 
Society webmaster at 
ad...@marinemammalscience.org

For all other questions about the grants, please contact:

Douglas Wartzok
Chair
Committee of Scientific Advisors
Society for Marine Mammalogy
wart...@fiu.edu

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[MARMAM] Carole Carlson (1947-2017)

[Phillip Clapham - NOAA Federal]

As some of you know, Carole Carlson died on March 24th after a long
illness.  The following is taken from an obituary, the full version of
which can be found here: http://www.currentobituary.com/obit/206306

---
Carole was Director of Research and Education for the Dolphin Fleet Whale
Watch, Research Associate at the College of the Atlantic (COA) and Adjunct
Scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies (CCS) with whom she developed
the first humpback whale catalog. Her research on the pigmentation patterns
used to identify individual humpback whales continues to influence how
population studies are done today. An expert on photo-identification
techniques, humpback whales and whale watching, she received her doctoral
degree in Biology and Ecology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova
Scotia. She collaborated educational and conservation data collection
programs for the Dolphin Fleet Whale Watch that is the prototype of the
NMFS and Whale and Dolphin Conservation’s “Whale Sense’ Program for the
Gulf of Maine, the CCS and the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary,
also regionally in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. She spent over
thirty years studying large cetaceans off the east coast of the United
States, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, the Dominican
Republic and the Eastern Caribbean.

She was Co-Chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling
Commission on Whale-watching and facilitated the Antarctic Humpback Whale
Catalogue archived at the COA. She organized and conducted international,
local and regional whale-watching workshops and operators training programs
on whale watch guidelines and regulations for Puerto Rico, Bonnaire,
Dominica, Iceland, St Lucia, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Oman
and the USA. She authored scientific papers as well as education materials
for distribution in the United States, the Wider Caribbean Region, Japan,
Taiwan and South America.

Carole promoted the Protocol Concerning Specially Protected Areas and
Wildlife (SPAW) of the Cartegena Convention of the United Nations
Environmental Program (UNEP) and helped draft its Marine Mammal Action
Plan. Other affiliations: Board of Director of Pacific Whale Foundation,
Scientific Advisor for: International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW,)
Cetacean Society International, Centro de Conservation Cetacea, Right Whale
Project of Uruguay, Whale Conservation Institute, Argentina, Brazilian
Right Whale Project, and UNEP.

And lastly, she was Executive Director of the Peaked Hill Trust, a
conservation organization for the Natural Heritage Cultural Community of
Dune Shacks in the Cape Cod National Seashore.
---

I would note that Carole was recognized for her work - and warm presence -
at the IWC in a remembrance held during the recent Scientific Committee
meeting in Slovenia; the tributes are on video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3lx8IJX8WA

Carole was a wonderful inspiration and a good friend to many, and she will
be much missed.

Phil Clapham

--
Phillip J. Clapham, Ph.D.
Leader, Cetacean Assessment and Ecology Program
Marine Mammal Laboratory
Alaska Fisheries Science Center
7600 Sand Point Way NE
Seattle, WA 98115, USA

Associate Editor, *Royal Society Open Science*
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/

tel 206 526 4037
email phillip.clap...@noaa.gov
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[MARMAM] New publication on oxytocin and pro-social behaviour in seals

[Kelly Robinson]

Dear MARMAM subscribers,

My co-authors and I are pleased to announce a new publication on the 
neuropeptide hormone oxytocin and its effects on pro-social behaviours in grey 
seals:

Robinson, K.J., Twiss, S.D., Hazon, N., Moss, S. & Pomeroy, P.P. (2017).

Positive social behaviours are induced  and retained after oxytocin 
manipulations mimicking endogenous  concentrations in a wild mammal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0554

Abstract:

The neuropeptide hormone oxytocin modulates numerous social and parental 
behaviours across a wide range of species, including humans. We conducted 
manipulation experiments on wild grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) to determine 
whether oxytocin increases proximity-seeking behaviour, which has previously 
been correlated with endogenous oxytocin concentrations in wild seal 
populations. Pairs of seals that had never met previously were given 
intravenous injections of 0.41 µg kg−1 oxytocin or saline and were observed for 
1 h post-manipulation. The dose was designed to mimic endogenous oxytocin 
concentrations during the observation period, and is one of the lowest doses 
used to manipulate behaviour to date. Seals given oxytocin spent significantly 
more time in close proximity to each other, confirming that oxytocin causes 
conspecifics to seek others out and remain close to one another. Aggressive and 
investigative behaviours also significantly fell after oxytocin manipulations. 
Despite using a minimal oxytocin dose, pro-social behavioural changes 
unexpectedly persisted for 2 days despite rapid dose clearance from circulation 
post-injection. This study verifies that oxytocin promotes individuals staying 
together, demonstrating how the hormone can form positive feedback loops of 
oxytocin release following conspecific stimuli, increased motivation to remain 
in close proximity and additional oxytocin release from stimuli received while 
in close proximity.

The article can be found at: 
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1855/20170554

The article is open access; so anyone who is interested in the manuscript 
should be able to download a pdf of it. However if you have any problems 
getting a copy please email 
kj...@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Kind regards,

Kelly Robinson


Dr Kelly Robinson


Research Fellow

Sea Mammal Research Unit

Scottish Oceans Institute

University of St Andrews

KY16 8LB


Tel: +44(0)1334 462635

Twitter: @KJRScience

Lab Twitter: @_SMRU_



For more information about my research please visit: 
https://kellyrobinsonscience.wordpress.com/


***
The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No SC013532
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[MARMAM] New Publication: Abundance estimation of gray whale calves from shore-based surveys.

[Hector Perez]

Dear colleagues from MARMAM community,

My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the following publication through 
Marine Mammal Science:

Pérez-Puig, H., Heckel, G. and Breiwick, J. M. (2017), Abundance estimation of 
gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) calves from shore-based surveys undertaken 
near Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico, 2004–2006. Mar Mam Sci, 33: 593–610. 
doi:10./mms.12401

Abstract:

Gray whale calf abundance was estimated from shore-based surveys near Ensenada, 
Baja California, during their northbound migration. Over the course of 129 
effort-days (756.5 observation hours), 162 calves were counted, comprising 42, 
41, and 79 calves in 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. To estimate the number 
of undetected calves during the observation periods in 2006, detection 
probabilities were estimated by simultaneous and independent counts using a 
Huggins model. The detection probabilities ranged from 0.655 to 0.997. The 
number of calves estimated during effort periods were divided by their 
estimated detection probabilities, while the total number of calves were 
estimated by fitting a generalized additive model (GAM) to the passage rate 
(whales/h) and effort (time) data. The final gray whale calf abundance 
estimates were 451 (95% CI = 430, 513), 253 (95% CI= 245, 308), and 442 (95% CI 
= 396, 510) calves for 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively. The estimates were 
lower than those reported for Piedras Blancas, California, during the same 
years, with one possible reason being that an important number of cow/calf 
pairs migrate too far from shore (>10 km) to be detected from the observation 
site used in this research.

The article can be downloaded here: 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10./mms.12401/full. If you would like a 
pdf copy or have any further inquiries please email to 
ghec...@cicese.mx or myself 
hector.pe...@prescott.edu


Best regards,


MC. Héctor Pérez Puig.

___

Programa de Investigación y Conservación - Programa de Mamíferos Marinos
Centro de Estudios Culturales y Ecológicos
Prescott College A.C.
Bahía de Kino, Sonora, México.
e-mail: hector.pe...@prescott.edu
teléfono: (01662) 242-0024.
http://www.prescott.edu/kino-bay-center/index.html
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