Data from: Geographic variation in diving behaviour and skin isotope ratios of northern bottlenose whales, Hyperoodon ampullatus
Data files
May 27, 2026 version files 81.79 KB
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diving_foraging_timebudget_data_CSV.csv
73.69 KB
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isotope_data_CSV.csv
3.63 KB
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README.md
4.47 KB
Abstract
Geographic variation in the diving behaviour of oceanic mammals will affect susceptibility to anthropogenic threats such as noise, contaminants, and shipping. Beaked whales are particularly susceptible to these threats. We used high-resolution multi-sensor tag data to analyse the diving and foraging behaviour of northern bottlenose whales around Jan Mayen, Norway (n = 15) and in the Gully, Scotian Shelf, Canada (n = 6). K-means clustering identified short-shallow and long-deep dive types in both locations, but indicated previously unknown mid-depth dives in Jan Mayen. Foraging dives (defined by high roll variance, corroborated by active clicking) included long- deep dives (Jan Mayen = 967 ± 77 m SEM, n = 26; Gully = 1247 ± 110 m, n = 14), but also these mid-depth dives (537 ± 13 m, n = 105). Time budgets varied substantially between locations, with whales in the Gully spending 15% less time foraging and twice as much time near-surface resting. Dead-reckoned tracks and movement parameters further showed enigmatic movement gyrations during dives, more common in Jan Mayen. Skin biopsy stable isotopes revealed small but significant regional differences, reflecting both diet and ecoregion. These population differences suggest unequal susceptibility to stressors and need consideration in future impact assessment.
Access this dataset on Dryad: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dbrv15fcd
Data used to compare diving behaviour, foraging behaviour, time budgets, and stable isotopes of northern bottlenose whales in Jan Mayen, Norway, and the Gully, Canada.
Description of the data and file structure
The data include two CSV files:
- diving_foraging_timebudget_data_CSV.csv - Dive data used for dive type classification, and comparison of dive characteristics, foraging behaviour, and time budgets.
- isotope_data_CSV.csv - Stable isotope data used for comparison of regional differences.
The definitions of the column headers of the two CSV files are below.
Column headers for diving_foraging_timebudget_data_CSV with 1 row = 1 dive:
- dive_id Identification number for dives (1 to 440)
- loc_id Location of deployment as a number (1 = Jan Mayen; 2 = The Gully)
- loc_id_string Location of deployment as a text string ("JanMayen" or "Gully")
- dep_id Deployment identification as a number (1 to 15 for Jan Mayen deployments, 1 to 6 for the Gully tag deployments)
- dep_id_string Deployment identification as a text string. For the DTag,s this consists of species initials ('ha'), year (20'13', 20'14', 20'15' or 20'16'), an underscore, Julian date, and a letter denoting the order of deployments on that Julian date. For the 3MPD3GT tags, this consists of f deployment date in format, e.g., "07Aug2011".
- cluster Dive cluster identified through K-means analysis as a number. For Jan Mayen deployments, 1 = short-shallow, 2 = mid-depth, and 3 = long-deep dives. For Gully deployments, 1 = short-shallow and 2 = long-deep dives.
- cluster_string Dive cluster identified through K-means analysis as a text string ("short_shallow", "mid_depth", or "long_deep")
- dur_min Dive duration in minutes
- depth Maximum dive depth in metres
- time_btm_min Duration of dive bottom phase in minutes
- asc_rate Ascent rate of dive in metres per second
- des_rate Descent rate of dive in metres per second
- circvar_roll Circular variance in roll in the bottom phase, bound between 0 and 1, with values closer to 0 representing few angle changes, while values closer to 1 represent numerous angle changes
- circvar_head Circular variance in heading in the bottom phase, bound between 0 and 1, with values closer to 0 representing few angle changes, while values closer to 1 represent numerous angle changes
- reg_click Presence (1) or absence (0) of regular echolocation clicks
- jerk_cv Jerk coefficient of variation (CV, the ratio of standard deviation to the mean) in the bottom phase
- divestart_s Start time of the dive (in seconds) relative to the start of the deployment (i.e., the number of seconds between the start of the deployment and the start of the dive), used to estimate time budgets.
- diveend_s End time of the dive (in seconds) relative to the start of the deployment (i.e., the number of seconds between the start of deployment and the end of the dive), used to estimate time budgets.
- btmstart_s Start time of the bottom phase (in seconds) of the dive relative to the start of the deployment (i.e., the number of seconds between the start of deployment and start of the bottom phase of the dive), used to estimate time budgets.
- btmend_s End time of bottom phase (in seconds) of the dive relative to the start of the deployment (i.e., the number of seconds between the start of deployment and end of the bottom phase of the dive), used to estimate time budgets.
- dep_dur_s Deployment duration in seconds
Column headers for isotope_data_CSV:
- id Identification number of each sample
- location Location of sampling (JM = Jan Mayen; SS = Scotian Shelf)
- year Year of each sample
- Sex Sex (F = female; M = male)
- age Field identification of age-class (A = adult; sub = subadult)
- d15N Nitrogen isotope (15N/14N) results per mil
- d13c.uncor Uncorrected carbon isotope (13C/12C) results per mil
- Laws.cor Laws correction applied to each sample, corrected to 2016
- Suess.cor Suess correction applied to each sample, corrected to 2016
- net.cor Net correction applied to each sample, corrected to 2016
- d13c.cor Corrected carbon isotope results per mil, corrected to 2016