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Ecology and Vulnerability
Humpback Whale
Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries
Scientific name
Megaptera novaeangliae
Profile: Humpback Whale ▾▸
Shifts in Range, Elevation, or Depth
From 2010 to 2017 along the Atlantic Coast of the northeastern U.S., the centroid of the Humpback Whale’s core range shifted 17 km to the south in both the spring...
Shifts in Range, Elevation, or Depth
From 2010 to 2017 along the Atlantic Coast of the northeastern U.S., the centroid of the Humpback Whale’s core range shifted 17 km to the south in both the spring and summer, whereas their fall range shifted 14 km to the northwest, and their winter range shifted 3.9 km to the southwest (Chavez-Rosales et al., 2022).
Shifts in Phenology
Humpback Whales shifted their peak habitat use in Cape Cod Bay 19.1 days earlier from 1998 to 2018, an average of 0.96 days/year (Pendleton et al., 2022). Humpbacks arrived in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 28 days earlier in 2010 than they did in 1984 and left around 27 days earlier during the same time frame, remaining in the Gulf for about the same amount of time each year (Ramp et al., 2015).
Changes in Population
Climate models exploring shifts in sea surface temperature due to climate change project that by 2100, anywhere between 35-67% (scenario RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5, respectively) of all global Humpback Whale breeding grounds will be warmer than their current range of breeding temperatures (von Hammerstein et al., 2022).
References
Chavez-Rosales, S., Josephson, E., Palka, D., & Garrison, L. (2022). Detection of habitat shifts of cetacean species: A comparison between 2010 and 2017 habitat suitability conditions in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, 877580.
Pendleton, D. E., Tingley, M. W., Ganley, L. C., Friedland, K. D., Mayo, C., Brown, M. W., ... & Staudinger, M. D. (2022). Decadal‐scale phenology and seasonal climate drivers of migratory baleen whales in a rapidly warming marine ecosystem. Global change biology, 28(16), 4989-5005.
Ramp, C., Delarue, J., Palsbøll, P. J., Sears, R., & Hammond, P. S. (2015). Adapting to a warmer ocean—seasonal shift of baleen whale movements over three decades. PloS one, 10(3), e0121374.
von Hammerstein, H., Setter, R. O., van Aswegen, M., Currie, J. J., & Stack, S. H. (2022). High-resolution projections of global sea surface temperatures reveal critical warming in humpback whale breeding grounds. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, 837772.