Humpback – Walvissen may look like soft giants, but every year they undertake the most extreme crash diet of nature, where they add about 36% of their masses in less than two months – somehow avoid the tissue breakdown that is hungry for other species. Now new insights into their epic migration have discovered how enormously their fat loss is.
Researchers from Australian Griffith University used drones to follow 103 adult humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) On the southern hemisphere, from their cold water food grounds in the Western Antarctic Peninsula to the warmer climates of their breeding ground off the coast of Colombia.
Of particular importance, seeing how this one -way trip of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) transformed their huge bodies, and how they managed to burn through blubber, but remained healthy enough by the time they reached the tropics for the females to birth sals.
The researchers discovered that the mammals 24,250 LB (11,000 kg) blubber – the weight of two adult African elephants – on their marathon swimming and their bulk with more than a third downsizing. All without stopping for even a snack on the road. To provide power, they need the equivalent of approximately 125,700 lb (57,000 kg) krill, enough to fill a cement mixer full of the small shellfish, a load that outweighs an Airbus A320 -Jet when taking off. That is an estimated 28.5 million individual krill for every migrant whale.
It is the metabolic equivalent of a person of 200 pounds (90 kg) who loses more than 70 lb (30 kg) in less than two months-without negative health effects.
“Southern hemisphere reverses depend on Antarctic Krill for their annual energy requirements, which means that their long migrations between feed and breeding grounds are fueled,” said lead researcher Alexandre Bernier-Graveline. “We discovered that the whales were at their thickest in the early autumn (autumn) -me-May and slimst against late spring-August-december-with a dramatic seasonal change in body condition.
“Our study quantifies the ‘extreme’ party and fast ‘lifestyle of whales and the crucial role of Antarctic Krill in their survival and migrant life history strategy,” he added.
This extreme fat loss offers new insights into the robust physiology and the metabolism of the animal and how much fuel is needed to complete this long-distance trip. The energy they burn on their journey of six to eight weeks, estimates of Bernier-Graveline, is about all calories that an average person uses in 62 years.
Unlike people, Whale Blubber is an easier available fuel to burn than what we store in our fat cells. As such, their extreme sober regime has no influence on their overall health or damage body systems. However, one pressure on their finely tuned physiology is very linked to us: ice loss in Antarctica.
Have seen rapid climate changes in the region, as well as a pattern of overfishing, Krill -numbers trend down. This also influences other species, including Kinstrap (Pygoscelis Antarcticus) and Gentoo (P. Papu) penguins, but will probably be felt the most in large mammals such as humpbacks that require millions of these shrimp -like individuals to bulge every year.
The new research helps scientists to better understand the requirements of humpbacks and how the availability of keystone species krill (Euphausia Superba) could directly affect whale figures. It also shows how technological progress-in this case, drone-based photogrammetry-crucial information can offer about the life cycles and the behavior of elusive marine mammals.
“By linking migration and reproductive energy costs to Krillbiomassa, our findings offer a critical ecological context to understand how changes in the environment such as krill populations can influence whale populations,” the researchers noted.
The research was published in the magazine Sea mammal science.
Source: Griffith University
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