Publications

"Are Antarctic minke whales unusually abundant because of 20th century whaling?", Molecular Ecology, Kristen Ruegg, Eric Anderson, C. Scott Baker, Murdoch Vant, Jennifer Jackson and Stephen R. Palumbi, 2010.

An ongoing debate in the management of Antarctic minke whales concerns whether they are more abundant now than a century ago, before commercial whaling. Some scientists contend that hunting of large whales resulted in an advantage for smaller whales, such as minkes, because of reduced competition for a small crustacean called krill, their main prey. These scientists propose that the Antarctic minke whale population is unusually, or artificially, abundant.

Using analyses of genetic diversity, the authors estimate that the long-term population size of Antarctic minke whales falls within the range of estimates from three modern-day surveys of minkes in the Southern Ocean. The study, published in Molecular Ecology, does not support the proposition that an unusually large population of minke whales is competing with other whale species for a limited supply of krill.

• View Lenfest Ocean Program summary of the paper.
• View the Lenfest Ocean Program news release.
• View the original paper from Molecular Ecology.
• Watch a short video explanation of the research:

To see other research from this project, click here.