26 September 2022: New article “Strange attractor of a narwhal (Monodon monoceros)”

Figure taken from article “Strange attractor of a narwhal (Monodon monoceros)”

A new paper by Evgeny A. Podolskiy and Scientific Committee member Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen was recently published in PLOS Computational Biology exhibiting a new approach to analyse data of tagged cetaceans.

Chaos theory was applied to analyse irregular behaviour of a tagged narwhal from Scoresby Sound, East Greenland by using a flowing geometrical shape to understand the full diversity of behaviours displayed.
The animal was found to be resting during noon with sea-ice appearance reducing resting times. It was found being more active during the night, with deeper dives during the afternoon. In general, lower energy was spent during daytime than night-time. Deeper dives exhibiting foraging behaviour might be explained by squid’s diel vertical migration during the afternoon, as squid is the most common item found in narwhals’ stomachs in Scoresby Sound.

Taking in to account all diving behaviours including near-surface dives this method may help to assess the susceptibility of narwhal and other animals to sea-ice loss and climate warming.

You can find the paper here:
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010432