Why whales are big but not bigger: Physiological drivers and ecological limits in the age of ocean giants

@article{Goldbogen2019WhyWA,
  title={Why whales are big but not bigger: Physiological drivers and ecological limits in the age of ocean giants},
  author={Jeremy A. Goldbogen and David E. Cade and D M Wisniewska and Jean Potvin and Paolo S Segre and Matthew S. Savoca and Elliott L. Hazen and Max F. Czapanskiy and Shirel R Kahane-Rapport and Stacy L. DeRuiter and Shane Gero and Pernille T{\o}nnesen and William T. Gough and M Bradley Hanson and Marla M Holt and Frants Havmand Jensen and M. Simon and Alison K Stimpert and Patricia Arranz and David W. Johnston and Douglas P. Nowacek and Susan E. Parks and Fleur Visser and Ari S. Friedlaender and Peter Lloyd Tyack and Peter Teglberg Madsen and Nicholas D. Pyenson},
  journal={Science},
  year={2019},
  volume={366},
  pages={1367 - 1372}
}
It's the prey that matters Although many people think of dinosaurs as being the largest creatures to have lived on Earth, the true largest known animal is still here today—the blue whale. How whales were able to become so large has long been of interest. Goldbogen et al. used field-collected data on feeding and diving events across different types of whales to calculate rates of energy gain (see the Perspective by Williams). They found that increased body size facilitates increased prey capture… Expand
View on Science
science.sciencemag.org
38 Citations
Background Citations
8
Methods Citations
3

Topics from this paper

    38 Citations

    Citation Type

    Citation Type

    The biology of big
    TLDR
    How developments in microprocessor technology to design submersible wildlife tags were used to measure the feeding performance and prey choices of the largest mammals in the seas revealed the ecological and evolutionary factors that drive the biology of being, not just big, but the biggest ever—perhaps the biggest possible. Expand
    Too big to study? The biologging approach to understanding the behavioural energetics of ocean giants.
    • Yuuki Y Watanabe, J. Goldbogen
    • Medicine
    • The Journal of experimental biology
    • 2021
    TLDR
    This Review outlines how the energy expenditure and intake of free-living ocean giants could be studied using 'biologging' technology and outlines how information on energy intake and foraging behaviour can be gained from tag data. Expand
    Whale sharks increase swimming effort while filter feeding, but appear to maintain high foraging efficiencies
    TLDR
    Tail beat kinematics and foraging behavior of filter feeding whale sharks off the Yucatán Peninsula indicate that stroke effort increases with filter feeding, particularly at the surface. Expand
    Forced into an ecological corner: Round-the-clock deep foraging on small prey by elephant seals
    TLDR
    To reveal the little-known ecosystem dynamics, prey is identified, feeding events are measured, and daily energy balance is quantified of 48 deep-diving elephant seals throughout their oceanic migrations by leveraging innovative technologies: animal-borne smart accelerometers and video cameras. Expand
    The whale shark genome reveals how genomic and physiological properties scale with body size
    • Jessica A. Weber, Seung Gu Park, +17 authors G. Church
    • Biology, Medicine
    • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    • 2020
    TLDR
    The comparative genomics approach uncovered multiple genetic features associated with body size, metabolic rate, and lifespan and showed that the whale shark is a promising model for studies of neural architecture and lifespan. Expand
    Thermoregulation and energetics
    TLDR
    Based on several lines of evidence, bowhead whales appear to have metabolic rates that are lower than other similar-sized baleen whales, which means that a large bowhead whale can likely survive a year or years on its lipid reserves. Expand
    Predator‐scale spatial analysis of intra‐patch prey distribution reveals the energetic drivers of rorqual whale super‐group formation
    TLDR
    This investigation of the foraging behavior of two species of rorqual whales within spatially limited and numerically extraordinary super aggregations in two oceans shows that both humpback whales off South Africa’s west coast and blue whales off the US west coast perform more lunges per unit time within these aggregations than when foraging individually. Expand
    What are the limits on whale ear bone size? Non-isometric scaling of the cetacean bulla
    TLDR
    The results, which encompass the breadth of the whale fossil record, size diversity, and taxonomic distribution, suggest that functional auditory capacity is constrained by congruent factors related to cranial morphology, as opposed to allometrically scaling with body size. Expand
    Ultrahigh foraging rates of Baikal seals make tiny endemic amphipods profitable in Lake Baikal
    TLDR
    The findings show unique mammal–amphipod interactions in an ancient lake, demonstrating that organisms even smaller than krill can be important prey for single-prey feeding aquatic mammals if the environment and predators’ adaptations allow high foraging rates. Expand
    Evolution of gigantism in right and bowhead whales (Cetacea: Mysticeti: Balaenidae)
    TLDR
    It is suggested that the evolution of gigantism in Balaenidae occurred independently in two lineages and, probably, in response to different palaeoenvironmental drivers. Expand
    ...
    1
    2
    3
    4
    ...

    References

    SHOWING 1-10 OF 192 REFERENCES
    100-Million-Year Dynasty of Giant Planktivorous Bony Fishes in the Mesozoic Seas
    TLDR
    Several new examples of giant bony fishes from Asia, Europe, and North America are reported, providing the first detailed anatomical information on this poorly understood clade and extending its range from the lower Middle Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous, showing that this group persisted for more than 100 million years. Expand
    How Baleen Whales Feed: The Biomechanics of Engulfment and Filtration.
    TLDR
    The current state of the field is reviewed by exploring several hypotheses that aim to explain how baleen whales feed, including multi-sensor tags, active acoustic prey mapping, and hydrodynamic modeling. Expand
    Ultra-High Foraging Rates of Harbor Porpoises Make Them Vulnerable to Anthropogenic Disturbance
    TLDR
    It is reported that porpoises forage nearly continuously day and night, attempting to capture up to 550 small fish prey per hour with a remarkable prey capture success rate of >90%, which means that they must forage almost continually to meet their metabolic demands with such small prey, leaving little margin for compensation. Expand
    Independent evolution of baleen whale gigantism linked to Plio-Pleistocene ocean dynamics
    TLDR
    It is shown that mysticetes underwent a clade-wide shift in their mode of body size evolution during the Plio-Pleistocene, and this transition, from Brownian motion-like dynamics to a trended random walk towards larger size, is temporally linked to the onset of seasonally intensified upwelling along coastal ecosystems. Expand
    Sizing ocean giants: patterns of intraspecific size variation in marine megafauna
    TLDR
    Overall, considerable variability in intraspecific size distributions from strongly left- to strongly right-skewed is found and several allometric equations that allow for estimation of total lengths and weights from more easily obtained measurements are provided. Expand
    Integrative Approaches to the Study of Baleen Whale Diving Behavior, Feeding Performance, and Foraging Ecology
    TLDR
    A class of multisensor, suction-cup-attached archival tags has revolutionized the study of large baleen whales, particularly with respect to the predatory strategies used by these gigantic bulk filter feeders to exploit abundant oceanic resources. Expand
    The evolution of foraging capacity and gigantism in cetaceans
    TLDR
    Cetaceans have evolved specialized foraging mechanisms and extremely large body size to exploit unique ecological niches in the ocean. Expand
    Sperm Whales: Social Evolution in the Ocean
    TLDR
    The crucial role that culture plays in the life of the sperm whale is explored, and a general model of how the ocean environment influences social behaviour and cultural evolution among mammals as well as other animals is built. Expand
    Energetic tradeoffs control the size distribution of aquatic mammals
    TLDR
    The evolutionary trajectories of body size in aquatic mammals are examined through both comparative phylogenetic analysis and examination of the fossil record to indicate that the evolution of an aquatic lifestyle is driving three of the four extant aquatic mammal clades toward a size attractor at ∼500 kg. Expand
    Gigantism and Its Implications for the History of Life
    TLDR
    Gigantism as a hallmark of competitive superiority appears to have lost its luster on land after the Mesozoic in favor of alternative means of achieving dominance, especially including social organization and coordinated food-gathering. Expand
    ...
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    ...