{"id":358,"date":"2011-01-31T13:39:26","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T13:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/?p=358"},"modified":"2023-09-26T14:28:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T14:28:37","slug":"whale-and-porpoise-research-in-denmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2011\/01\/31\/whale-and-porpoise-research-in-denmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Whale and Porpoise Research in Denmark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Alex Werth spent a week (Jan 24-29, 2011) with fellow marine biologists at Aarhus University in Denmark (www.au.dk\/en<\/a>) to study whales. Dr. Werth served as an \u201copponent\u201d or member of the thesis committee of Aarhus PhD student Malene Juul Simon, whose doctoral dissertation was on \u201cBaleen whales, their foraging behavior, ecology and habitat use in an arctic habitat.\u201d Specifically, she studied the feeding and migration of bowhead, humpback, and other whales in the waters around Greenland, where she lives. Dr. Werth had to attend her thesis defense\u2014she passed and earned her PhD\u2014as well as to present his own research findings in a symposium\/workshop with many Scandinavian whale researchers. After the thesis defense Dr. Simon’s family hosted a reception with tasty Danish and Greenlandic food, including musk ox and reindeer along with many kinds of fish.<\/p>\n

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New PhD Malene Juul Simon of Greenland, center, with her graduate thesis committee (l-r), Professors Angela Fago (Italy), Alex Werth (USA), Peter Teglberg Madsen (Denmark), and Bernd Wuersig (Germany) <\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Dr. Werth also spent time with his colleague (and Simon\u2019s graduate adviser) Dr. Peter Teglberg Madsen at the Fjord & Baelt marine research facility in Kerteminde, Denmark. With Polish PhD student Danuta Wisniewska and other graduate students they are studying feeding in harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena<\/em>) and harbor seals (Phoca vitulina<\/em>). The goal is to see how they use suction, generated by rapid depression and retraction of the tongue, to suck in water and ingest fish. This is investigated using digital tags (temporarily affixed by suction cups to the animals) which include hydrophones, accelerometers, and other sensors. High speed cameras show what the animals are doing at the same time that the tags record digital data about the animals\u2019 movements, sounds, and muscular contractions. The harbor porpoises had to be trained to accept a small sensor on their throats along with the main tag on their backs, so Professor Werth worked with the trainers to get the animals to roll over and be tagged. This work will continue, and he hopes to return when Denmark is not as cold and snowy!<\/p>\n

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\"Harbor<\/a>

Harbor porpoise wearing a D-tag on its back<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Professor<\/a>

Professor Werth (right) and trainer teaching a porpoise to roll over and accept a tag on its throat<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Alex Werth spent a week (Jan 24-29, 2011) with fellow marine biologists at Aarhus University in Denmark (www.au.dk\/en) to study whales. Dr. Werth served as an \u201copponent\u201d or member of the thesis committee of Aarhus PhD student Malene Juul … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2243,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/2243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}