Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems

About this book

This unprecedented volume presents a sweeping picture of what we know about the natural history, biology, and ecology of whales in the broad context of the dynamics of ocean ecosystems. Innovative and comprehensive, the volume encompasses multiple points of view to consider the total ecological impact of industrial whaling on the world's oceans. Combining empirical research, ecological theory and modeling, and historical data, its chapters present perspectives from ecology, population biology, physiology, genetics, evolutionary history, ocean biogeography, economics, culture, and law, among other disciplines. Throughout, contributors investigate how whaling fundamentally disrupted ocean ecosystems, examine the various roles whales play in food webs, and discuss the continuing ecological chain reactions to the depletion of these large animals.

In addition to reviewing what is known of the current and historic whale populations, "Whales, Whaling, and Ocean Ecosystems" considers how this knowledge will bear on scientific approaches to conservation and whaling in the future and provocatively asks whether it is possible to restore ocean ecosystems to their pre-whaling condition.

Contents

List of Contributors List of Tables List of Figures 1. Introduction BACKGROUND 2. Whales, Interaction Webs, and Zero-Sum Ecology 3. Lessons From Land 4. When Ecological Pyramids Were Upside Down 5. Pelagic Ecosystem Response to a Century of Commercial Fishing and Whaling 6. Evidence for Bottom-Up Control of Upper-Trophic-Level Marine Populations WHALES AND WHALING 7. Evolutionary Patterns in Cetacea 8. A Taxonomy of World Whaling 9. The History of Whales Read from DNA 10. Changes in Marine Mammal Biomass in the Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and after the Period of Commercial Whaling 11. Industrial Whaling in the North Pacific Ocea 1952-1978 12. Worldwide Distribution and Abundance of Killer Whales 13. The Natural History and Ecology of Killer Whales 14. Killer Whales as Predators of Large Baleen Whales and Sperm Whales PROCESS AND THEORY 15. Physiological and Ecological Consequences of Extreme Body Size in Whales 16. Ecosystem Impact of the Decline of Large Whales in the North Pacific 17. The Removal of Large Whales from the Southern Ocean 18. Great Whales as Prey 19. Whales and Whaling in the North 20. Legacy of Industrial Whaling 21. Predator Diet Breadth and Prey Population Dynamics 22. Bigger is Better CASE STUDIES 23. Gray Whales in the Bering and Chukchi Seas 24. Whales, Whaling, and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean 25. Sperm Whales in Ocean 26. Ecosystem Effects of Fishing and Whaling in the North Pacific and Atlantic Oceans 27. Potential Influences of Whaling on the Status and Trends of Pinniped Populations SOCIAL CONTEXT 28. The Dynamic Between Social Systems and Ocean Ecosystems 29. Whaling, Law, and Culture OVERVIEW AND SYNTHESIS 30. Whales Are Big and It Matters 31. Restropection and Review Index

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Biography

James A. Estes is Research Biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is coeditor of Community Ecology of Sea Otters. Douglas P. DeMaster is Director of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center. Daniel F. Doak and Terrie M. Williams are Professors of Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Doak is coauthor of Quantitative Conservation Biology and Williams is author of The Hunter's Breath: On Expedition with the Weddell Seals of the Antarctic. Robert L. Brownell is Senior Scientist with the Southwest Fisheries Science Center.