Global warming is affecting the population dynamics and trophic interactions across a wide range of ecosystems and habitats. Translating these real‐time effects into their long‐term consequences remains a challenge. The rapid and extreme warming period that occurred after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition (7–12 thousand years ago) provides an opportunity to gain insights into the long‐te...

Elucidating patterns of population structure for species with complex life histories, and disentangling the processes driving such patterns, remains a significant analytical challenge. Humpback whale ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) populations display complex genetic structures that have not been fully resolved at all spatial scales. We generated a data set of nuclear markers for 3575 samples spanning the seven breeding stocks and...

Right whales off Namibia were severely depleted by early 19th century whaling, and rarely featured in modern whaling catches in the 1920s. Aerial surveys of the Namibian coastline from 1978 and onwards revealed increasing numbers of right whales, but few cow‐calf pairs. Aerial surveys off South Africa since 2009 showed a major decline in the availability of animals without calves. Twenty individual matches were made between 94...

This paper presents data from 48 resightings of 16 southern right whales that were satellite‐tagged on the South African coast in September 2001, up to and including 2012. Tag performance in terms of number of days with locations received was significantly higher in males than females, and lowest in cows with calves, and attributed to behavioral differences leading to variable degrees of antenna damage. Resightings occurred fr...

The southern right whale's ( Eubalaena australis ) demography, occurrence, habitat use, and behavior off South Africa are known predominantly from an ongoing aerial survey data set that started in 1971. The fixed timeframes of these surveys and their geographical bias towards south coast nursery areas have constrained our knowledge about the right whale's seasonal distribution elsewhere. We present shore‐based observations and...

Age and reproductive information for 65 false killer whales stranded in South Africa in 1981 are compared with similar material from 156 animals examined from drive fisheries in Japan in 1979 and 1980. Sizes at birth, sexual maturation, and physical maturity all indicated that both sexes were 10%–20% larger in Japan than South Africa. Females reached sexual maturation at similar ages (8–10.5 yr) in both populations, and althou...

Heaviside's dolphins, Cephalorhynchus heavisidii , are endemic to southwestern Africa, where they are exposed to unknown levels of anthropogenic threats, including inshore set netting. Using photo‐ID data collected over 3 yr on the west coast of South Africa, we calculated Chapman's‐modified Petersen estimates of the number of distinctive individuals at three spatial scales. Sample sizes were small and recapture rates low resu...

Right whales carry large populations of three ‘whale lice’ ( Cyamus ovalis , Cyamus gracilis , Cyamus erraticus ) that have no other hosts. We used sequence variation in the mitochondrial COI gene to ask (i) whether cyamid population structures might reveal associations among right whale individuals and subpopulations, (ii) whether the divergences of the three nominally conspecific cyamid species on North Atlantic, North Pacif...

Using nine nuclear species‐specific microsatellite loci and two mitochondrial gene fragments (cytochrome b and control region), we investigated the processes that have shaped the geographical distribution of genetic diversity exhibited by contemporary dusky dolphin ( Lagenorhynchus obscurus ) populations. A total of 221 individuals from four locations (Peru, Argentina, southern Africa, and New Zealand) were assayed, covering m...

A bstract Aerial surveys over the last 32 yr have shown that the distribution of southern right whales Eubalaena australis along the south coast of South Africa is markedly discontinuous, but highly predictable. A GIS was used at a variety of scales to investigate whether this pattern was related to environmental characteristics. Whale distribution was analyzed as density per 20‐min bin of longitude over two temporal and spati...

A bstract Environmental factors are thought to strongly influence the distribution and predictability of the coastal distribution of southern right whales ( Eubalaena australis ) off South Africa. Preferred habitat had generally shallow sloping sedimentary floors and was characteristically protected from open ocean swell and prevalent seasonal winds. This study investigated whether habitat choices at smaller scales (within bay...

A bstract Longman's beaked whale, Indopacetus pacificus , was known previously from only two skulls. Here we describe four new specimens of this species from strandings in the western and central Indian Ocean. Two juveniles, previously misidentified from external morphology as Hyperoodon planifrons , were identified as I. pacificus through diagnostic characteristics of mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequences derived from the holotype...