Marine mammals articles within Nature Communications

Featured

• Article
  07 May 2024 | Open Access

  Contextual and combinatorial structure in sperm whale vocalisations

  Sperm whales use sequences of clicks to communicate. Here, the authors show that these vocalizations are significantly more complex than previously believed-the “sperm whale phonetic alphabet" has both combinatorial structure and call modulation dependent on the conversational context.

  • Pratyusha Sharma
  • , Shane Gero
  •  & Jacob Andreas

• Article
  18 July 2023 | Open Access

  Ancient dolphin genomes reveal rapid repeated adaptation to coastal waters

  The chronology and mode of parallel evolution remain unclear. Here, the authors compare mid-Holocene and contemporary bottlenose dolphin adaptations between pelagic and coastal ecosystems with paleogenomics, finding rapid adaptation to newly emerged habitat from standing genetic variation.

  • Marie Louis
  • , Petra Korlević
  •  & Andrew D. Foote

• Article
  27 October 2015 | Open Access

  Large-scale climatic anomalies affect marine predator foraging behaviour and demography

  Understanding how organisms respond to short-term climate variations will help predict the impact of future global change. Here, Bost et al. show that large-scale climatic anomalies coincide with changes in the foraging behaviour and populations dynamics of king penguins in the Southern hemisphere.

  • Charles A. Bost
  • , Cedric Cotté
  •  & Henri Weimerskirch

• Article | 16 January 2015

  Exercise at depth alters bradycardia and incidence of cardiac anomalies in deep-diving marine mammals

  Deep-sea diving mammals routinely undergo extreme physiological challenges not experienced by their terrestrial counterparts. Using high-resolution electrocardiographic recorders fitted to seals and dolphins, Williams et al. report an increased frequency of cardiac arrhythmias at greater exercise intensity and dive depth.

  • Terrie M. Williams
  • , Lee A. Fuiman
  •  & Randall W. Davis

• Article
  31 July 2012 | Open Access

  Social networks reveal cultural behaviour in tool-using dolphins

  Whether humans are the only animals with cultural behaviour remains an open question in behavioural research. Here, a network analysis of the social preferences among bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia finds that tool-using dolphins prefer others like themselves, suggesting the presence of cultural behaviour.

  • Janet Mann
  • , Margaret A. Stanton
  •  & Lisa O. Singh