Short-finned pilot whales were recorded and satellite-tagged during pelagic monitoring along the central coast of Ecuador (1º15′ S – 2º30′ S) to improve understanding of the ecology and demography of this pelagic cetacean. Survey effort comprised 18 trips (seven in 2024 and 11 in 2025), totaling 2,587.2 km and 90.1 hours, with greater coverage during the warmer season (February-April). Thirteen groups were documented, totaling an estimated 218–250 individuals in water ranging from 240 to 1,771 m in depth. Relative abundance along the continental slope was 9.04 whales per 100 km of survey effort. Mean group size was 18.1 individuals (SD = 9.86; range = 2–35). A total of 139 distinct individuals were photo-identified, including eight intra-annual resightings. Satellite tags were deployed on twelve individuals. Based on spatial distribution, tagged individuals were classified into two clusters: coastal and oceanic. The 95% utilization distribution (UD) of the coastal cluster encompassed 28,353 km² and was primarily associated with the continental slope. In contrast, the oceanic cluster exhibited a substantially larger 95% UD (457,000 km²), extending across deep-slope and offshore waters. This bathymetrically structured spatial segregation suggests the presence of two ecotypes with distinct habitat-use strategies. Offshore movements further suggest that the Carnegie Ridge may function as a migratory pathway between mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. We recommend expanding surveys to the colder and dry season to better resolve population structure and assess relationships between pilot whale distribution and environmental variability.

This study introduces a novel, drone-based approach for the detection and classification of Greater Caribbean Manatees (Trichechus manatus manatus) in the Panama Canal Basin by integrating advanced deep learning techniques. Leveraging the high-performance YOLOv8 model augmented with Sliced Aided Hyper Inferencing (SAHI) for improved small-object detection, our system accurately identifies individual manatees, mother–calf pairs, and group formations across a challenging aquatic environment. Additionally, the use of AltCLIP for zero-shot classification enables robust demographic analysis without extensive labeled data, enhancing model adaptability in data-scarce scenarios. For this study, more than 57,000 UAV images were acquired from multiple drone flights covering diverse regions of Gatun Lake and its surroundings. In cross-validation experiments, the detection model achieved precision levels as high as 93% and mean average precision (mAP) values exceeding 90% under ideal conditions. However, testing on unseen data revealed a lower recall, highlighting challenges in detecting manatees under variable altitudes and adverse lighting conditions. Furthermore, the integrated zero-shot classification approach demonstrated a robust top-2 accuracy close to 90%, effectively categorizing manatee demographic groupings despite overlapping visual features. This work presents a deep learning framework integrated with UAV technology, offering a scalable, non-invasive solution for real-time wildlife monitoring. By enabling precise detection and classification, it lays the foundation for enhanced habitat assessments and more effective conservation planning in similar tropical wetland ecosystems.

The olive ridley turtle Lepidochelys olivacea is one of the most abundant marine turtle species, but its populations are threatened by various environmental changes, including climate change. Understanding how the marine environment influences it is crucial for conservation efforts. This study models the habitat suitability of L. olivacea in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, a region of significant ecological importance for its nesting and foraging activities. We used remote sensing data from 59 individuals tagged in Panama and Costa Rica between 2009 and 2018. The response was modeled with MaxEnt, using a presence-only approach and environmental variables including sea surface temperature, ocean mixed layer thickness, chlorophyll-a concentration, and current velocity. We categorized months into warm (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) conditions, providing insight into climate change effects. Results reveal that chlorophyll-a concentration and sea surface temperature best predicted the presence of L. olivacea. The intertropical convergence zone exhibited high habitat suitability, especially in the Central Pacific. During El Niño, suitable habitat declined, primarily along coastlines, while, during La Niña, it expanded, favoring oceanic waters and temperate temperatures in upwelling zones. These findings suggest climate change could significantly impact L. olivacea distribution, potentially shifting nesting and foraging areas.

Humpback whales, a species of baleen whale occurring in all oceans globally, undergo seasonal migration between their breeding grounds in tropical warm waters and high latitude feeding grounds. Using multiple years of satellite tracking data, we modeled the effect of oceanic conditions on the movement behaviour of 42 humpback whales belonging to the Southeastern Pacific population (also known as Breeding Stock G) during their migration from breeding grounds in Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador to feeding grounds in waters around the Antarctic Peninsula. We report evidence that during their migration, humpback whales engage in a movement behaviour frequently associated with feeding, and that this behaviour was more likely to occur in relatively more productive waters. We show that whales partly rely on cues they perceive in their immediate environment to initiate their southward migration, but also on their memory of oceanic conditions on their feeding grounds, timing their arrival with the complete melting of sea ice which triggers a bloom of krill in the Antarctic Ocean. Overall, our findings suggest that humpback whales integrate information they gather from their immediate environment to predict the oceanic conditions at distant locations and adjust the timing of their migration, maximizing their interaction with their preys. However, it is unclear if humpback whales will fully succeed in tracking their preys in a rapidly changing climate and ensure the long-term persistence of the species.

The ecology of the Greater Caribbean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus) remains underexplored in southern Central America, particularly in Panama and Costa Rica. This study presents, for the first time, significant information about their local and regional movements, connectivity, and residence times in various wetlands. Since 2016, we have employed acoustic monitoring to track the manatee population, identifying individuals through their vocalizations. This method has been in use in Costa Rica since 2021. We identified 61 presumed individuals in Panama and 49 in Costa Rica, using calls that contained squeak, hi-squeak, and a combination of squeak and hi-squeak vocalizations. Their average residence time was 1,059 days in Panama and 292 days in Costa Rica, with some individuals remaining in the wetland complex for up to 3,026 and 1,160 days, respectively, occasionally venturing into the sea for short periods. Nine individuals exhibited regional movements, with an average of 340 days between detections in the two countries. The timing of this migration was analyzed using remote sensing data (air and sea temperatures, precipitation, and wave height) during the study period, which coincided with times of high rainfall and sea levels, as well as increased air and water temperatures. The observed connectivity and residence times suggest that manatees in this region of Central America rely on wetlands for both breeding and feeding. To support the long-term conservation of this area, we propose a binational corridor for manatees, approximately 984 km in length.

The movement behavior of blue whales in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) is not well understood, especially regarding the migration of Northeast (NEP) and Southeast (SEP) Pacific populations. This study presents tracking data from a satellite-tagged blue whale recorded between the Galapagos Islands and the Baja California Frontal System. A Bayesian state-space model (BSAM) estimated the whale's movement trajectory, and a hidden Markov model (HMM) classified behavioral states. Environmental factors like sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-a concentration, primary productivity, and mesoscale eddies were analyzed to identify ecological drivers. The whale displayed foraging behavior in areas with lower temperatures, higher productivity, and elevated chlorophyll levels, with movements influenced by cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies. These findings improve understanding of blue whale migration and the potential overlap between NEP and SEP populations in key tropical regions. They suggest that areas like the Galapagos and Costa Rica Thermal Dome may serve as ecological corridors, influenced by eddies.

Ship strikes are a worldwide threat to large whales as a major cause of mortality and injury. In the Southeast Pacific, this has been poorly studied. In the last decade, an increase in ship strikes has been observed off Chile. This study assesses ship strike mortality in large whales off Chile using data on fatal strandings from the past 52 years, (1972-2023) and vessel traffic patterns. In 63 out of 226 strandings (28 %), ship strike was the direct or probable cause of mortality, i.e. the primary cause of non-natural death in whales. Fin whales (B. physalus) suffered highest total ship strikes (n = 23; 37%), followed by humpback (M. novaeangliae) (n =13; 21 %), blue whales (B. musculus) (n = 7; 11 %), sei (B. borealis) and sperm whales (P. macrocephalus) (n = 6; 10 %). Ship strikes were highest in the Regions of Valparaiso, Coquimbo, Atacama and Antofagasta (Central-Northern Chile), Los Lagos, Aysen and Magallanes (Southern Chile). Since 2013, when necropsies began to be systematically performed, an average of 5 individuals/year have been killed by ships, mostly between January and May. We review all ship strike studies globally and compare rates in Chile with those elsewhere. Based on data between 2013 and 2023, Chile is the country with the highest ship strike mortality globally; considering the entire time series since 1972, Chile ranks number six worldwide. We identify major knowledge gaps and recommend policy measures, including establishing High-Risk Areas and the implementation of shipping lanes modifications and vessel speed restrictions.

The Gulf of Panama is a critical nesting area for several seabird species, thanks to its unique oceanographic conditions that create abundant foraging opportunities during seasonal upwelling events. However, long-term monitoring of seabird breeding colonies in the region has been lacking, leaving critical ecological aspects of these species, including their conservation status, insufficiently updated. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of the seabird colony of Bona Island, a newly designated protected area. Through drone surveys, we estimated the breeding populations of Brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis and Magnificent frigatebird Fregata magnificens during the 2023-2024 season and compared the findings with the most recent previous report. Our results confirmed that both species predominantly breed during the upwelling season and exhibit consistent nesting area preferences over time. The Brown pelican population remained stable throughout the years, indicating a healthy colony, while the Magnificent frigatebird population declined in 2023-2024 compared to earlier years, warranting further investigation. Drone surveys proved to be an efficient monitoring tool, and we recommend adopting of standardized drone-based techniques for future population assessments. Given the numerous threats seabirds face and the recent establishment of protections at the study site, this study provides a critical first step in understanding an important seabird colony in the Pacific and offers valuable insights for future conservation and management efforts in Panama.

An understanding of the adaptive changes and interconnections between human wellbeing and animal population viability is critical for establishing effective wildlife conservation strategies. Whale watching in Panama is a growing industry, but enforcement of vessel regulations remains weak. In this study, we identified the extent to which whale watching activities affect the behaviors of humpback whales in the protected area of Las Perlas Archipelago, Panama. We found that the average number of direction changes and dive time exhibited by whales, potential indicators of stress, were significantly higher when whale watching boats approached closer than permitted, and after pandemic-related travel restrictions resulted in lower vessel traffic in 2020 and 2021. Our results suggest that increases in both the number of direction changes and dive time would result from increased numbers of whale-watching boats, which could pose challenges to the long-term well-being of humpback whales. The findings in this study can be used to identify the potential behavioral, ecological, and social intersections within this biosocial system, that can facilitate the identification of intervention methods to more sustainably manage whale watching in Panama and better conserve both wildlife and human wellbeing.

DNA metabarcoding is a powerful biodiversity monitoring tool, enabling simultaneous assessments of diverse biological communities. However, its accuracy depends on the reliability of reference databases that assign taxonomic identities to obtained sequences. Here we provide a DNA barcode dataset for aquatic fauna of the Panama Canal, a region that connects the Western Atlantic and Eastern Pacific oceans. This unique setting creates opportunities for trans-oceanic dispersal while acting as a modern physical dispersal barrier for some terrestrial organisms. We sequenced 852 specimens from a diverse array of taxa (e.g., fishes, zooplankton, mollusks, arthropods, reptiles, birds, and mammals) using COI, and in some cases, 12S and 16S barcodes. These data were collected for a variety of studies, many of which have sought to understand recent changes in aquatic communities in the Panama Canal. The DNA barcodes presented here are all from captured specimens, which confirms their presence in Panama and, in many cases, inside the Panama Canal. Both native and introduced taxa are included. This dataset represents a valuable resource for environmental DNA (eDNA) work in the Panama Canal region and across the Neotropics aimed at monitoring ecosystem health, tracking non-native and potentially invasive species, and understanding the ecology and distribution of these freshwater and euryhaline taxa.

AimTo examine the species richness, distribution and macroecological patterns of elasmobranch assemblages across a broad latitudinal gradient in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO).LocationThe study area encompasses the Pacific coast of the American continent, spanning from 65 degrees N to 60 degrees S, and extending from the coastline to approximately 1000 km offshore, encompassing the oceanic archipelagos.TaxonElasmobranchs.MethodsUtilising the established distribution ranges of 190 elasmobranch species (comprising 89 sharks and 101 rays), we assessed the richness and spatial distribution of these species across the EPO. Subsequently, three macroecological patterns were scrutinised: Rapoport's rule, the Mid Domain Effect with its association to Mean Sea Surface Temperature, and the correlation between body size and latitudinal distribution.ResultsThe analysis of species richness along latitudinal gradients unveiled a bimodal pattern, reaching peaks between 30 degrees to 20 degrees N and 10 degrees N to 5 degrees S. A decline in species richness was observed from tropical to polar regions. Contrary to Rapoport's Rule, Stevens' and midpoint methods demonstrated higher geographic range values at lower latitudes, diminishing towards higher latitudes. Additionally, the mid-domain effect model exhibited a robust correlation with the mean sea surface temperature. Exploring the interspecific relationship between body size and extent of occurrence, it was found that 29 out of 190 species are more susceptible to extinction.Main ConclusionMarine elasmobranchs of the EPO defy conventional latitudinal richness patterns and deviate from Rapoport's rule. Furthermore, our findings indicate a robust correlation between observed richness and both sea surface temperature and environmental heterogeneity. The proportion of species vulnerable to human or stochastic impacts potentially leading to extirpation in relation to their geographic range was low across the majority of examined provinces.

The expansion of the world 's merchant fleet poses a great threat to the ocean 's biodiversity. Collisions between ships and marine megafauna can have population-level consequences for vulnerable species. The Endangered whale shark ( Rhincodon typus ) shares a circumglobal distribution with this expanding fleet and tracking of movement pathways has shown that large vessel collisions pose a major threat to the species. However, it is not yet known whether they are also at risk within aggregation sites, where up to 400 individuals can gather to feed on seasonal bursts of planktonic productivity. These "constellation " sites are of significant ecological, socioeconomic and cultural value. Here, through expert elicitation, we gathered information from most known constellation sites for this species across the world ( >50 constellations and >13,000 individual whale sharks). We defined the spatial boundaries of these sites and their overlap with shipping traffic. Sites were then ranked based on relative levels of potential collision danger posed to whale sharks in the area. Our results showed that researchers and resource managers may underestimate the threat posed by large ship collisions due to a lack of direct evidence, such as injuries or witness accounts, which are available for other, sub-lethal threat categories. We found that constellations in the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and Southeast and East Asia, had the greatest level of collision threat. We also identified 39 sites where peaks in shipping activity coincided with peak seasonal occurrences of whale sharks, sometimes across several months. Simulated collision mitigation options estimated potentially minimal impact to industry, as most whale shark core habitat areas were small. Given the threat posed by vessel collisions, a coordinated, multi-national approach to mitigation is needed within priority whale shark habitats to ensure collision protection for the species.

IntroductionThis work presents an unsupervised learning-based methodology to identify and count unique manatees using underwater vocalization recordings.MethodsThe proposed approach uses Scattering Wavelet Transform (SWT) to represent individual manatee vocalizations. A Manifold Learning approach, known as PacMAP, is employed for dimensionality reduction. A density-based algorithm, known as Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (HDBSCAN), is used to count and identify clusters of individual manatee vocalizations. The proposed methodology is compared with a previous method developed by our group, based on classical clustering methods (K-Means and Hierarchical clustering) using Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT)-based spectrograms for representing vocalizations. The performance of both approaches is contrasted by using a novel vocalization data set consisting of 23 temporally captured Greater Caribbean manatees from San San River, Bocas del Toro, in western Panama as input.ResultsThe proposed methodology reaches a mean percentage of error of the number of individuals (i.e., number of clusters) estimation of 14.05% and success of correctly grouping a manatee in a cluster of 83.75%.DiscussionThus having a better performances than our previous analysis methodology, for the same data set. The value of this work lies in providing a way to estimate the manatee population while only relying on underwater bioacoustics.

The Galapagos Marine Reserve is vital for cetaceans, serving as both a stopover and residency site. However, blue whales, occasionally sighted here, exhibit poorly understood migratory behavior within the Galapagos and the broader Eastern Tropical Pacific. This study, the first to satellite tag blue whales in the Galapagos (16 tagged between 2021 and 2023), explored their behavior in relation to environmental variables like chlorophyll-a concentration, sea surface temperature (SST), and productivity. Key findings show a strong correlation between foraging behavior, high chlorophyll-a levels, productivity, and lower SSTs, indicating a preference for food-rich areas. Additionally, there is a notable association with geomorphic features like ridges, which potentially enhance food abundance. Most tagged whales stayed near the Galapagos archipelago, with higher concentrations observed around Isabela Island, which is increasingly frequented by tourist vessels, posing heightened ship strike risks. Some whales ventured into Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone, while one migrated southward to Peru. The strong 2023 El Niño–Southern Oscillation event led to SST and primary production changes, likely impacting whale resource availability. Our study provides crucial insights into blue whale habitat utilization, informing adaptive management strategies to mitigate ship strike risks and address altered migration routes due to climate-driven environmental shifts.

In May 2022, twelve prickly sharks, Echinorhinus cookei Pietschmann 1928, were sighted at 151-350 m depth in the Cordillera de Coiba seamounts, Pacific Panama. This discovery expands our knowledge of the distribution and habitat use of this rare deep-sea species. It underscores the potential significance of the Cordillera de Coiba seamounts, an offshore marine protected area, as a critical habitat for E. cookei, a species threatened by commercial fishing. Although unverified reports exist on its presence in the tropical eastern Pacific, this publication represents the first documented record of live specimens of E. cookei in Panama.

Leatherback turtles Dermochelys coriacea are globally endangered. This study tracked 30 individuals from the North Atlantic population tagged on the Caribbean Panama rookery (San San Pond Sak protected area, Bocas del Toro) over a period of 3 yr. We used satellite telemetry to investigate the probability that turtles switched between migration and foraging behavioral states as a function of environmental variables. We mapped the extensive migratory routes of these turtles and analyzed these using data derived from remote sensing, including chlorophyll, productivity, and sea surface temperature (SST), to assess how these influence their migratory and foraging behaviors. We also considered oceanographic processes, i.e. mesoscale eddies coinciding with the turtles' migration paths, to understand their behavioral responses. Our observations revealed that while some turtles undertook extensive migrations to high-use areas in the Northeast and Northwest Atlantic, the majority remained within the boundaries of the Gulf of Mexico. The study effectively differentiated migration and feeding behavior, noting a clear positive relationship between feeding activities and chlorophyll concentration, while productivity played only a marginal role, and no influence was found for SST and mesoscale eddies. This study advances knowledge of North Atlantic leatherback turtle migrations, underscoring the importance of integrated, multidisciplinary marine conservation efforts. Understanding the impact of climate warming on migration paths and food source availability necessitates a holistic approach encompassing changes in physical oceanography, nutrient dynamics, and interactions from plankton to higher trophic levels. Additionally, as leatherback turtles traverse various international territories, the research emphasizes the need for collaborative data collection for their effective protection.

Climate change is shifting animal distributions. However, the extent to which future global habitats of threatened marine megafauna will overlap existing human threats remains unresolved. Here we use global climate models and habitat suitability estimated from long-term satellite-tracking data of the world's largest fish, the whale shark, to show that redistributions of present-day habitats are projected to increase the species' co-occurrence with global shipping. Our model projects core habitat area losses of >50% within some national waters by 2100, with geographic shifts of over 1,000 km (similar to 12 km yr(-1)). Greater habitat suitability is predicted in current range-edge areas, increasing the co-occurrence of sharks with large ships. This future increase was similar to 15,000 times greater under high emissions compared with a sustainable development scenario. Results demonstrate that climate-induced global species redistributions that increase exposure to direct sources of mortality are possible, emphasizing the need for quantitative climate-threat predictions in conservation assessments of endangered marine megafauna.

This paper explores the process of implementing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) on resource-constrained microcontroller for real-time manatee detection in an edge computing application. The steps taken to optimize the CNN model and reduce its computational burden without compromising its performance are outlined. Techniques such as weight pruning and model quantization are employed to enhance the efficiency of the deployed model. The results of our implementation demonstrate the feasibility of using CNNs on resource-constrained microcontrollers for edge computing applications. The proposed approach opens up new possibilities for deploying intelligent applications directly at the network edge, enabling faster decision-making and reducing the need for constant data transmission to centralized servers.

The worldwide decline of coral reefs has renewed interest in coral communities at the edge of environmental limits because they have the potential to serve as resilience hotspots and climate change refugia, and can provide insights into how coral reefs might function in future ocean conditions. These coral communities are often referred to as marginal or extreme but few definitions exist and usage of these terms has therefore been inconsistent. This creates significant challenges for categorising these often poorly studied communities and synthesising data across locations. Furthermore, this impedes our understanding of how coral communities can persist at the edge of their environmental limits and the lessons they provide for future coral reef survival. Here, we propose that marginal and extreme coral communities are related but distinct and provide a novel conceptual framework to redefine them. Specifically, we define coral reef extremeness solely based on environmental conditions (i.e., large deviations from optimal conditions in terms of mean and/or variance) and marginality solely based on ecological criteria (i.e., altered community composition and/or ecosystem functioning). This joint but independent assessment of environmental and ecological criteria is critical to avoid common pitfalls where coral communities existing outside the presumed optimal conditions for coral reef development are automatically considered inferior to coral reefs in more traditional settings. We further evaluate the differential potential of marginal and extreme coral communities to serve as natural laboratories, resilience hotspots and climate change refugia, and discuss strategies for their conservation and management as well as priorities for future research. Our new classification framework provides an important tool to improve our understanding of how corals can persist at the edge of their environmental limits and how we can leverage this knowledge to optimise strategies for coral reef conservation, restoration and management in a rapidly changing ocean.

Coral species, which function to build the framework structure of reef ecosystems, vary across sheltered to exposed environmental gradients. For centuries, conditions in sheltered environments that impact lagoonal reefs have been altered by local anthropogenic disturbances, while conditions in exposed environments that impact forereefs have largely buffered the effects of local anthropogenic disturbances. Yet, bleaching events induced by global anthropogenic disturbances challenge how we predict changes in reef composition and function across environmental gradients. Here, we quantify spatio-temporal variation in the composition and function of 11 coral reefs across sheltered to exposed environmental conditions over 15 years and 3 bleaching events in Bocas del Toro, Panama. We find that the composition and function of lagoonal reefs and forereefs were distinct and shaped by an environmental gradient altered by anthropogenic disturbance. Lagoonal reefs lacked major reef-building species and experienced greater losses in coral species and diversity over time. Although only lagoonal reefs changed in coral species composition, both lagoonal reefs and forereefs became functionally similar over time. Our findings indicate that lagoonal reefs may be less resilient to global environmental change than forereefs due to long-term effects of local anthropogenic disturbances. Additionally, increasing global anthropogenic disturbances might lead to the homogenization of reef function, as reefs adapt to novel environmental conditions.