Anna McGregor (Nousek)

Graduate Student

Biological Oceanography
Major Professor: Dr. Douglas Nowacek

Department of Oceanography
Rm 505, OSB
Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida 32306-4320

Research

Currently, one of the fundamental aims of research on cetaceans is to improve conservation status but with many species, little data are available about individual requirements for survival and therefore the extent to which human influences stress the population must be guessed. My study species, the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), has been the center of much c onservation work, as the population consists of about 400 individuals, and does not seem to be recovering after the ban on whaling.

The goal of my research is to assess the hydrodynamic drag on right whales with three different approaches; 1) attachment of a multi-sensor digital archival tag (DTAG) to free-ranging right whales 2) simulation of water flow around a three-dimensional right whale model with programs developed by the Computational Science Department at FSU, and 3) Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV) measurements of flow around a scale model in a wind tunnel with the help of the FSU Mechanical Engineering Department.

With these methods, I hope to investigate whether foraging whales (i.e. traveling with open mouths) experience higher drag than traveling whales, whether drag changes for different reproductive states and the contribution of various control surfaces to overall drag on the animal. This information would help to understand any increases in the energetic requirements caused by feeding. By understanding these parameters at an individual level, the effects that behavioral changes caused by harassment or disturbance have on the population may be better monitored and controlled.

'But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?'

'The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.'

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge