Concern over oceanic noise has been increasing over the past several years. The escalation of noise in today’s oceans can be attributed, in part, to many man-made sources, otherwise known as anthropogenic noise. Some examples of these man-made sources are recreational vehicles, shipping vessels, sonar, and oil exploration. This increase in noise has caused an observable and measurable change in the behavior of many marine animals and could potentially be causing changes in the physiology of these animals as well.

The previous work completed by the Marine Mammal Physiology Project focused on the changes this noise could have on heart rates of diving marine mammals if they were sent into a “flight” response. The contradiction between the dive response and the exercise response was observed in these studies and changes in heart rate were detected at various intensities of exercise. (This data is currently in the process of being published) In conjunction with this research, other studies have also shown marine mammals to experience heart arrhythmias during periods of diving. Severe and/or prolonged cases of these heart arrhythmias could be playing a roll in recent mass stranding events, especially with deep diving cetaceans.

The current Marine Mammal Physiology Project research strives to answer the question of what physiological parameters trigger the hearts of these deep diving marine mammals to become unstable and experience arrhythmias. The potential trigger parameters that will be investigated are swimming speed, stroking amplitude (force), and changes in depth. Each of these parameters will be investigated independently, but will also be combined to observe if there is any affect when these factors are experienced together. For example, the heart rate will be analyzed of a cetacean swimming at a set speed near the surface of the ocean versus a cetacean swimming at a set speed at depth. This work will be completed working with additional facilities and research programs around the world working with various species of cetaceans in different environments. Discovering the triggers for these heart arrhythmias would have large conservation effects on wild populations and would help inform policy decisions to help mitigate the affects of anthropogenic (man-made) noise on marine animals living in the ocean.