David Sweeney

@dasweeney.bsky.social

PhD student at the University of St Andrews (CREEM) Affiliate Researcher at MarEcoTel https://dasweeney4423.github.io/ Cetacean scientist and statistical ecologist with research currently focused on goose-beaked whales in Southern California

Had a joy presenting at ECS last week in Dundee. Lots of cool science on display being done by lots of wonderful people. Stay tuned as we are finishing up model development and will have new and improved model results shortly!

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MarEcoTel has another exciting paper out on goose-beaked whales. Here we used estimates of energy expenditures from tag data to dive deeper into the physiology of these amazing deep divers. Results suggest that Ziphius run out of oxygen for a large portion of foraging dives. DOI: 10.1113/EP093021

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For my undergraduate research, we published an automated peak detection method for behavioral event identification using tag data and showed its effectiveness for detecting blue whale lunges and Risso's dolphin prey capture attempts. DOI: 10.1186/s40317-019-0169-3

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MarEcoTel published results on movements and diving behaviors as recorded by LIMPET tags deployed on Risso's dolphins in Southern California. These model results lay an exciting foundation for us to continue our research on this species. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2022.873548

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MarEcoTel previously published a classification tree algorithm that predicts whether a goose-beaked whale dive contained foraging based on continuously recorded movement data from SMRT tags. We compare our algorithm with K-means or depth/duration threshold clustering methods. DOI: 10.3354/meps14068

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MarEcoTel published this paper last year using SMRT tags on goose-beaked whales to highlight trends in their foraging behavior in the Southern California Bight. These whales love foraging near the seafloor and show interesting regional variability. DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1415602

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MarEcoTel contributed data and analytical help on this study of beaked whale data from around the world. It's exciting to see comparative studies like this come out in wide-scale collaborative efforts to better understand these fascinating whales! DOI: 10.1111/mms.70070

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