Ethology and Behavioral Ecology of Mysticetes

Author Biography

Dr Christopher W. Clark is a scientific hybrid. As an undergraduate, he completed a dual degree program in biology and engineering (1972), followed by a M.S. in electrical engineering in the field of digital signal processing and a Ph.D. in biology in the field of animal behavior and neurobiology at Stony Brook University (1981). He was awarded a NMIH postdoctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller University to investigate relationships between animal acoustic communication signals and social context. In 1987, he became Founding Director of the Bioacoustics Research Program (BRP) at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and in 1993, he received an endowed position as Imogene Johnson Senior Scientist at the Cornell Lab and Graduate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. He retired from Cornell in 2017. When asked what he does, Clark’s answer is simple: “I listen to this singing planet!” Clark has a long and distinguished history of successfully working at the interface between science, applied engineering, industry, and regulations, all with the specific objectives of using science to understand the potential impacts of human activities on marine mammals and to inspire and enable the scientific conservation of marine wildlife and habitats. His current research areas focus on the chronic influence of aggregate man-made noise sources on marine mammal distributions and behaviors. He is deeply concerned about the continued loss of marine animal acoustic habitats as a result of multiple anthropogenic noise sources operating over large scales for extended periods of time. In collaboration with a small group of experts, Clark is working to progress a new, ecologically based paradigm for evaluating and measuring biological risks from anthropogenic activities at individual and population levels. Clark has published over 300 papers and presentations, and devoted considerable effort to scientific advocacy through documentary films and outreach. Dr Ellen C. Garland has a B.Sc. (Hons) in marine biology, ecology, and biodiversity from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand (2004). After finishing her undergraduate degree, she worked for both the National Instituted for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in New Zealand and the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries. Ellen completed her Ph.D. in bioacoustics in the Cetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory at the University of Queensland, Australia (2011). Her broad research interests include animal culture, social learning, bioacoustics, and behavioral ecology with a focus on cetaceans, and in particular the cultural transmission, vocal learning, and function of humpback whale song. After completing her Ph.D., she undertook a three-year National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council) postdoctoralfellowship at the Marine Mammal Laboratory (AFSC, NMFS, and NOAA) in Seattle, USA, investigating the geographic variation in vocalizations from beluga whale populations in the Alaskan Arctic. She then completed a two-year Royal Society Newton International Fellowship at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, where she continued her work on South Pacific humpback whale song culture. In 2017, she was awarded a prestigious five-year Royal Society University Research Fellowship and started her own cetacean culture laboratory at the University of St Andrews. She has a number of high-impact publications on song, vocal learning, and animal culture and is emerging as a world expert in cetacean culture.