Collaborating for Conservation: A Summary of Current and Future Directions in Blue Whale Science

Capri D. Joliffe, K. Edyvane, G. Genty, R. D. McCauley, C. McPherson, D. Barlow, B. L. Southall, L. Irvine, T. A. Branch, C. Jenner, M. Jenner, C. Burton, G. Whittome, P. Gill, G. Russell, B. Elsdon, J. Quintas

Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (2026)

DOI: 10.1002/aqc.70331

The blue whale has been the focus of considerable research effort worldwide, yet significant gaps remain in the understanding of this species' ecology, behaviour, distribution and resilience to anthropogenic pressures. This review synthesizes insights from an international workshop held during the 25th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals 2024 hosted in Perth, Western Australia, which convened over 40 scientists specializing in blue whale research. The workshop aimed to consolidate the current state of knowledge, identify key research gaps and develop collaborative strategies to advance blue whale science with a focus on the local population of blue whales, the eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue (EIOPB) whale. With research efforts into the species intensifying in recent years, there exist considerable opportunities for collaboration across research groups to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and maximize the value of research efforts. Further, filling critical knowledge gaps that limit conservation and effective population management will require holistic studies focused not only on blue whales but on their prey species, krill and the mechanistic links between environmental drivers, krill and blue whales.

Estimating sediment properties using a new source level function for wind-driven underwater sound derived from long-term archival data (PDF)

Martin, S.B. and M. Siderius.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 159(1): 300–314 (2026)

DOI:10.1121/10.0042217

Wind-driven breaking waves generate the background sound throughout the ocean. An accurate source level for wind-driven breaking waves is needed for estimating the ambient sound levels needed for sound exposure modeling, environmental assessments, and assessing the detection performance of sonars. Previous models applied a constant roll-off of sound levels at −16 dB/decade at all wind speeds, and these models' source levels were flat at frequencies below ∼1000 Hz due to a lack of measurements. Here, we analyzed 16 long-term archival datasets with limited anthropogenic sound sources to estimate the wind-driven source level down to 100 Hz. We estimated the site-specific areic propagation loss (APL) using a ray-based model and then added the APL to the median received levels at each wind speed to obtain the source level. An equation for the areic dipole source level is provided that increases as wind speed cubed, like most other air-ocean coupling processes. The model may be used to estimate sediment properties (given a wind speed history and measured sound levels) or to estimate wind speeds (given the sediment type and measured sound levels). It is well suited for estimating ambient sound levels from wind for soundscape modeling. An open-source implementation is available.