{"id":449109,"date":"2026-05-14T21:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449109\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:10:09","slug":"tiny-ocean-life-helps-scientists-estimate-whale-prevalence-off-the-california-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/449109\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny ocean life helps scientists estimate whale prevalence off the California coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

image:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Humpback whales launch out of the water to feed on large schools of anchovies off the California coast near the Oceano Dunes. <\/p>\n

view more\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit: Cal Poly Photo by Joe Johnston<\/p>\n

A\u00a0new approach\u00a0to\u00a0better\u00a0assessing\u00a0whale\u00a0population data\u00a0has\u00a0emerged,\u00a0led by\u00a0a research team\u00a0of marine biologists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and\u00a0statisticians from Cal Poly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scientists typically\u00a0monitor\u00a0whale presence through\u00a0a variety of\u00a0traditional\u00a0methods such as visual surveys,\u00a0photo identification,\u00a0acoustic\u00a0monitoring,\u00a0satellite\u00a0imagery,\u00a0and, increasingly,\u00a0genomic\u00a0methods.\u00a0But monitoring can be\u00a0challenging\u00a0due to a wide-ranging migration area and intermittent surface pop-ups, among other\u00a0difficulties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Using an innovative alternative\u00a0method,\u00a0the Cal Poly-Scripps team\u00a0examined\u00a0microbial \u201cecological habitats\u201d\u00a0as\u00a0highly\u00a0accurate\u00a0predictors of\u00a0how many\u00a0filter-feeding\u00a0whales\u00a0were\u00a0occupying\u00a0the California coast\u00a0between\u00a02014 and 2020\u00a0from San Diego to Morro Bay.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baleen whales, including blue,\u00a0fin\u00a0and humpbacks, commonly migrate along the California coastline and feed on\u00a0dense collections of\u00a0food sources. Baleen mouth filters function as a sieve after the whale takes a massive mouthful of water. The massive creatures use their tongues to expel the water and trap prey such as krill,\u00a0zooplankton\u00a0and other small fish inside the mouth for the whale to eat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In their\u00a0analysis\u00a0examining\u00a0the ecological habitat, or community of small organisms associated with baleen whales, researchers\u00a0from the two\u00a0institutions\u00a0collaborated to\u00a0develop data models\u00a0to predict whale presence from microbial\u00a0and plankton\u00a0information.\u00a0Their\u00a0study\u00a0appeared in\u00a0a May 6, 2026, article<\/a>\u00a0published\u00a0in the journal PLOS One.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0research\u00a0used data from the world\u2019s oldest marine ecosystem monitoring program, the\u202fCalifornia Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI)<\/a>,\u00a0now in its 77th year, to examine the relationship between baleen whales and their ecological habitat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concept of this project was to try and find an indirect signal that\u2019s based on ecological relationships in the microbial communities that are in the water\u00a0and how they\u00a0respond to macro-organisms, such as\u00a0whales,\u201d said Trevor Ruiz, a Cal Poly assistant professor of statistics,\u00a0one of the\u00a0study\u2019s\u00a0lead authors.\u00a0\u201cWe developed a tailored approach, and while our methods are not off the shelf, they remain transferrable to prediction from microbial data more broadly, and along with our scientific findings we have provided a portable software implementation of the methods to lower barriers to adoption for other researchers who might be interested in applying our approach to other problems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Working in coordination with Scripps marine ecologists, who informed the biological\u00a0aspects of the\u00a0research,\u00a0the Cal Poly team developed\u00a0the statistical\u00a0modeling using computational\u00a0data science\u00a0tools.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project gave me valuable experience in data analysis and modeling,\u201d said Nick Patrick, a 2025 Cal Poly statistics\u00a0alumnus\u00a0and study coauthor. \u201cIt had many collaborators across different fields, from statistics to marine ecology to genomics,\u202fand seeing everyone from these disciplines coming together to form the final product was one of the most interesting\u00a0aspects.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Satterthwaite,\u00a0a marine ecologist affiliated with\u00a0Scripps\u00a0Oceanography, said the scientists compared the whale survey data taken from visual observations with seawater samples analyzed for microbial and small plankton communities using environmental DNA, or eDNA. In this approach, seawater is filtered and DNA from organisms in the water is extracted. Specific genetic markers are then amplified and sequenced, allowing researchers to\u00a0identify\u00a0the suite of organisms present by matching sequences to reference databases.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany approaches rely on indirect environmental proxies that are several steps removed from the actual biology of the whales,\u201d Satterthwaite\u00a0said. \u201cOur work uses eDNA to characterize the structure of the microbial and small plankton community which adds to existing oceanographic information by incorporating ecological habitat information of whales, which improves our ability to predict whale densities.\u201d\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Findings based on the study suggest that on average, predictions of whale densities based on microbial communities were found to be 53% more\u00a0accurate\u00a0than traditional forecasts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The work adds to a growing body of research using eDNA that gives scientists a window into the biology and ecology of the ocean. With whales, scientists are interested in\u00a0monitoring\u00a0their populations as a general indicator of ocean health, to better understand and manage human impacts such as vessel strikes, entanglement, and noise disturbance, and because they are culturally and ecologically important. Satterthwaite said that this work can help scientists to better understand how whales are connected to tiny ocean life, like bacteria, phytoplankton, and zooplankton.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the cost decreases and the ease of using eDNA techniques improves, eDNA is becoming increasingly accessible for a wide range of applied purposes. More broadly, this approach could also be used to study other large marine animals, like sharks or large open-ocean fish, which could help create more detailed\u00a0range\u00a0maps of marine species.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n

Method of Research<\/p>\n

Data\/statistical analysis<\/p>\n

Subject of Research<\/p>\n

Animals<\/p>\n

Article Title<\/p>\n

Tiny Ocean Life Helps Scientists Estimate Whale Prevalence Off the California Coast<\/p>\n

Article Publication Date<\/p>\n

6-May-2026<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"image:\u00a0 Humpback whales launch out of the water to feed on large schools of anchovies off the California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,82],"class_list":["post-449109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}