Smelly Gas Helps Researchers Track Right Whales

In the vast open ocean, how does a large animal like a right whale find enough food to eat? Right whales eat copepods, a tiny marine zooplankton, and the copepods eat microscopic plants known as phytoplankton. Scientists suspect that in order to find food,produced by natural chemical compounds. The compound scientists are most interested in is called dimethyl sulfide — a smelly gas released when the copepods eat phytoplankton.

Upwelling brings nutrients to the surface for phytoplankton and then zooplankton growth. North Atlantic right whales feed on copepods by straining huge volumes of ocean water through their baleen plates, which act like a sieve. Photo: Liam Waters/NMFS Permit No. 27272-01Support for the hypothesis that right whales are using DMS to home in on their food lies in the anatomy of the whales themselves. Baleen whales, such as right whales, have paired blowholes , while toothed whales have just one.

The DMS instrument draws precise samples of water from the ocean and pushes air through those samples to create bubbles. These bubbles extract the DMS gas from the water, which then can be measured consistently throughout the research transect. Photo: David Wiley/NOAAThe research team is back out in Cape Cod Bay.

“We want to protect right whales to the best of our ability without restricting human activity in the area. The best way to do that is with good information,” said Wiley. Currently Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary communicates information about whale sightings to boaters and mariners in the area using. The app allows anyone on the water to share sightings to help rescuers, researchers, and mariners reduce deadly vessel strikes.

Just like the pigment chlorophyll is an indicator used for remotely mapping phytoplankton, DMS is one possible indicator for creating similar maps of zooplankton. “Creating heat maps of DMS will give a more accurate picture of when the right whale’s food source — copepods — are in the area.” A team at NASA is alsoWhat About Climate Change?

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