Introduction Precise population monitoring of beluga whales ( Delphinapterus leucas ) is crucial for Arctic conservation management; yet, the manual annotation of aerial drone imagery is costly and logistically challenging. Calf detection is particularly important because calf presence and survival rates are indicators of reproductive health, recruitment success, and long-term population viability. However, calves are challeng...

An aquatic mode of life and sociality influences mating strategies in cetaceans. In high latitude species, like the beluga whale, extreme seasonality likely imposes additional constraints on parental care, competition, and mate choice. Genetic profiling of 623 biopsy-sampled beluga whales in Bristol Bay, Alaska revealed that both sexes were polygamous, calves associated predominantly with their mothers, variation in reproducti...

Tropical lakes experience less thermal convection than temperate lakes and can be stably stratified by temperature gradients alone. Deep tropical lakes are often presumed meromictic, but conditions for sustained meromixis are poorly constrained. Here, we investigate the stratification stability of a deep (200 m) tropical Lake Towuti (Indonesia) and analyze its sensitivity to meteorological and climatic parameters using explora...

Despite the universal fascination with the tusk of the narwhal, the function of this long, spiraled tooth is still debated, primarily because few people have observed how narwhals ( Monodon monoceros ) use their tusks in the wild. Using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), we recorded previously unreported interactions between multiple narwhals, Arctic char ( Salvelinus alpinus ) and glaucous gulls ( Larus hyperboreus ) in Canada...

Understanding the difficult to predict interactive effects of anthropogenic stressors is recognized as one of the major challenges facing environmental scientists and ecosystem managers. Despite burgeoning research, predicting stressor interactions is still difficult, in part because the same two stressors can interact, or not, depending on their intensities. While laboratory experiments have provided useful insights about how...

Arctic marine mammals face a multitude of challenges linked to climate change, including increasing anthropogenic noise from ship traffic. The beluga whale ( Delphinapterus leucas ), a predominately Arctic endemic cetacean, relies heavily on acoustic communication, with documented overlap between their vocalizations and hearing range and ship noise. Some belugas migrate through areas with the highest levels of ship traffic in...

Background Genome sequencing was first offered clinically in the UK through the 100,000 Genomes Project (100KGP). Analysis was restricted to predefined gene panels associated with the patient’s phenotype. However, panels rely on clearly characterised phenotypes and risk missing diagnoses outside of the panel(s) applied. We propose a complementary method to rapidly identify pathogenic variants, including those missed by 100KGP...

About a third of all marine fish in the world are caught in Small-Scale Fisheries (SSF). SSF are increasingly recognised as essential for food security and livelihoods for vulnerable and economically fragile communities globally. Although individual SSF vessels are usually perceived as having little impact on the ecosystem, the cumulative impact of gear type and number of vessels may be substantial. Bottom trawling is a common...