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.
# Data from: Geographic variation in diving behaviour and skin isotope
ratios of northern bottlenose whales, *Hyperoodon ampullatus* 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: 1. diving_foraging_timebudget_data_CSV.csv - Dive
data used for dive type classification, and comparison of dive
characteristics, foraging behaviour, and time budgets. 2.
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
| Date made available | 27 May 2026 |
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| Publisher | Dryad |
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