Dear colleagues,
On behalf of an international team of 33 authors, I am pleased to announce the publication
Amundin, M., Carlström, J., Thomas, L., Carlén, I., Koblitz, J., Teilmann, J., Tougaard, J., Tregenza, N., Wennerberg, D., Loisa, O., Brundiers, K., Kosecka, M., Kyhn, L. A., Tiberi Ljungqvist, C., Sveegaard, S., Burt,
M. L., Pawliczka, I., Jussi, I., Koza, R., ... Benke, H. (2022). Estimating the abundance of the critically endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) population using passive acoustic monitoring. Ecology and Evolution,
12, e8554. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8554
The paper was first published with an erroneous order of authors, which now has been corrected. The paper is open access.
Abstract:
Knowing the abundance of a population is a crucial component to assess its conservation status and develop effective conservation plans. For most cetaceans,
abundance estimation is difficult given their cryptic and mobile nature, especially when the population is small and has a transnational distribution. In the Baltic Sea, the number of harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) has collapsed since the mid-20th
century and the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise is listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN and HELCOM; however, its abundance remains unknown. Here, one of the largest ever passive acoustic monitoring studies was carried out by eight Baltic Sea nations
to estimate the abundance of the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise for the first time. By logging porpoise echolocation signals at 298 stations during May 2011–April 2013, calibrating the loggers’ spatial detection performance at sea, and measuring the click
rate of tagged individuals, we estimated an abundance of 71–1105 individuals (95% CI, point estimate 491) during May–October within the population's proposed management border. The small abundance estimate strongly supports that the Baltic Proper harbour porpoise
is facing an extremely high risk of extinction, and highlights the need for immediate and efficient conservation actions through international cooperation. It also provides a starting point in monitoring the trend of the population abundance to evaluate the
effectiveness of management measures and determine its interactions with the larger neighboring Belt Sea population. Further, we offer evidence that design-based passive acoustic monitoring can generate reliable estimates of the abundance of rare and cryptic
animal populations across large spatial scales.
Kind regards,
Julia Carlström
Julia Carlström
Curator, PhD
Department of Environmental Research and Monitoring
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