Defining the Transfer Functions of the PCAD Model in North Atlantic Right Whales (Eubalaena glacialis) - Retrospective Analyses of Existing Data

Anthropogenic noise is known to cause both behavioral and physiological changes in marine mammals, but the potential for long-term population level effects is not known. The NRC (2005) Population Consequences of Acoustic Disturbance (PCAD) model provided a framework to trace the effects of acoustic disturbance through the life history of a marine mammal to its population status. In North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis), extensive data on hormone levels, health and body condition, and individual life history exists. Our long term goal was to analyze the links between hormones, visual assessments of health, and vital rates of right whales, enhance the modeling efforts on PCAD transfer functions and develop a theoretical framework for field studies on acoustic disturbance.
The original document contains color images.