Abstract

In the face of climate change and growing impacts of anthropogenic activities, it is becoming increasingly necessary to develop approaches that combine empirical research, conceptual frameworks, and modeling techniques to forecast consequences on wildlife populations. In this seminar, I will overview our research that seeks to forecast population consequences of disturbance in the context of climate change on a large baleen whale. This is being achieved by capitalizing on the world’s largest unoccupied aerial systems (UAS; drone)-photogrammetry dataset on humpback whale health (body condition), coupled with fine-scale multi-sensor movement tag data from >120 deployments on humpback whales on both their Alaskan foraging grounds and Hawaiian breeding grounds.

Short Bio

Lars Bejder is the Director of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and a Visiting Fellow at the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS). His research interests include both empirical and applied themes which support the conservation and management of marine megafauna. He is interested in behavioral ecology, population ecology,  and evaluating potential effects of human activity (e.g., coastal development, habitat degradation, climate change) on marine wildlife. He uses innovative technology to quantify fine-scale habitat use, movements, body condition and health of marine mammals. Lars works closely with wildlife management agencies to optimize the conservation and management outcomes of his research.

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Sofia Bentsen at sofia@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the semimar as the latest to request a link.