Find research datasets worth reusing
Search datasets from major research repositories and use ShareScore to quickly assess how well each record supports discovery, access, and reuse.
99
datasets available to search
ShareScore release 0.9.0
Dataset results
99 results for “killer whales”
Code and data for "Costly lifetime maternal investment in killer whales"
<p>R code and data necessary to reproduce all analyses from the manuscript "Costly lifetime maternal investment in killer whales." Included is reproductive history data on 40 southern resident killer whale females, the R code to fit Bayesian regression models, code to produce the plots in the manuscript, and code to perform sensitivity analysis for fixed effect priors.</p>
Vortex input files for PVA on Southern Resident Killer Whales
<p>Input files for publication:</p> <p>Lacy, R.C., R. Williams, E. Ashe, K.C. Balcomb III, L.J.N. Brent, C.W. Clark, D.P. Croft, D.A. Giles, M. MacDuffee, and P.C. Paquet. 2017. Evaluating anthropogenic threats to endangered killer whales to inform effective recovery plans. Scientific Reports 7:14119. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-14471-0.</p>
Vortex project file for PVA of Southern Resident Killer Whale -- manuscript by Williams et al.
<p>Project file for Vortex PVA scenarios used in Williams et al. manuscript. </p> <p><span>Williams, R., R.C. Lacy, E. Ashe, L. Barrett-Lenard, T.M. Brown, J.K. Gaydos, F. Gulland, M. </span><span>MacDuffee, B.W. Nelson, K.A. Nielsen, H. Nollens, S. Raferty, S. Reiss, P.S. Ross, M.S. Collins, R. Stimmelmayr, & P. Paquet. 2024. Warning sign of an accelerating decline in critically endangered killer whales (<em>Orcinus orca</em>). Communications Earth & Environment (in press).</span></p>
Code and data for "Postreproductive female killer whales reduce socially inflicted injuries in their male offspring"
<p>R code and data necessary to reproduce all analyses from the manuscript "Postreproductive female killer whales reduce socially inflicted injuries in their male offspring". Included is demographic and social data on 103 southern resident killer whales, the R code to fit Bayesian regression models and code to produce the plots in the manuscript.</p>
Killer whale acoustic patterns respond to prey abundance and environmental variability around the Prince Edward Islands, Southern Ocean
<p>Killer whales are apex predators with temporally and spatially varying distributions throughout the world’s oceans. Their ecology and behaviour are poorly understood in most regions due to limited research, often because of logistical challenges. Here, we use easily deployable year-round passive acoustic monitoring device to investigate the seasonal acoustic occurrence and diel vocalizing behaviour of killer whales around the remote sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands (PEIs), Southern Ocean. Killer whales showed diel vocalizing patterns that varied seasonally in relation to their prey abundance and social activities. Killer whale calls were intermittently detected year-round with a high number of hours containing calls in October through December, and a secondary peak in March through May, which corresponded to the abundance of seal prey. Random forest modelling identified wind speed as an important predictor of the occurrence of killer whale calls whilst sea surface height, chlorophyll-a, and sea surface temperature were moderately important. We provide the first acoustic evidence that killer whale occurrence around PEIs coincide with variability in environmental conditions and prey abundance. Our results provide the first indication of diel vocalizing pattern of killer whales in the Southern Ocean. This knowledge is important for understanding killer whale ecology and adaptation to the changing oceans.</p>
Divergent foraging strategies between populations of sympatric matrilineal killer whales
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Dietary plasticity and broad North Atlantic origins inferred from bulk and amino acid-specific δ15N and δ13C favor killer whale range expansions into Arctic waters
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from:The foe you know: Observations of interspecific interactions between small cetaceans and northern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) in the northeast Pacific
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Cold call: the acoustic repertoire of Ross Sea killer whales (Orcinus orca, Type C) in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Acoustic behavior of endangered Hawaiian false killer whales
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Mitogenome alignment of 159 unique haplotypes representing 455 individual killer whales
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Data from: Delineating important killer whale foraging areas using a spatiotemporal logistic model
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Examples of killer whale (Orcinus orca) calls from passive acoustic monitoring in the Gulf of Alaska
Open the record for dataset details and reuse information.
Endangered predators and endangered prey: seasonal diet of Southern Resident killer whales
<p>Understanding diet is critical for conservation of endangered predators. The Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) (<em>Orcinus orca</em>) are an endangered population occurring primarily in the west coast and inland waters of Washington and British Columbia. Insufficient prey has been identified as a factor limiting their recovery, so a clear understanding of the whales' seasonal diet is a high conservation priority. Previous studies have shown that their summer diet in inland waters consists primarily of Chinook salmon (<em>Oncorhynchus tshawytscha</em>), despite this species' rarity compared to some other salmonids. During other times of year, when ranging patterns include the U.S. and Canadian west coast and the northern and southern portions of the Salish Sea, their diet is largely unknown. To address this data gap, we collected feces and prey remains from October to May 2004-2017 in both the Salish Sea and U.S. west coast waters. Using visual and genetic species identification for prey remains and genetic approaches for fecal samples, we characterized the diet of the SRKWs in fall, winter, and spring. Chinook salmon were identified as an important prey item year-round, averaging ~50% of their diet in the fall, increasing to 70-80% in the late winter/early spring, and returning to nearly 100% in the late spring. Other salmon species and non-salmonid fishes, also made substantial dietary contributions. The relatively high species diversity in winter suggested a possible lack of Chinook salmon, probably due to seasonally lower densities, based on their proclivity to selectively consume this species in other seasons. A wide diversity of Chinook salmon stocks were consumed, many of which are also at risk. Although west coast samples consisted of 14 stocks, four rivers systems accounted for 90% of the samples, predominantly the Columbia River. Increasing the abundance of Chinook salmon stocks that inhabit the whales' winter range may be an effective conservation strategy for this population.</p>
Data from: Kinship and association in a highly social apex predator population, killer whales at Marion Island
Social structure is a core element of population biology, influenced by intrinsic and environmental factors. Intra-taxon comparisons of social organization are useful in elucidating the role of such ecological determinants of sociality. Killer whales Orcinus orca are widely distributed, social delphinids with diverse morphology, diet, behaviour, and genetics, but few studies have quantitatively examined social structure in this species. We used 7 years of individual identification data on killer whales at Marion Island, Southern Ocean, to calculate the half-weight association index among 39 individuals, creating a weighted association network. There were long-term associations between individuals, though associations were dynamic over time. We defined 8 social modules using a community detection algorithm and these typically contained 3 individuals of various ages and sexes. Pairwise genetic relatedness among 20 individuals was not significantly correlated with association index. Individuals were on average more related within than between social modules, but social modules contained related as well as unrelated individuals. Likely parent pairs of 6 individuals indicated mating between social modules.
Data from: Genome-wide SNP data suggests complex ancestry of sympatric North Pacific killer whale ecotypes
Three ecotypes of killer whale occur in partial sympatry in the North Pacific. Individuals assortatively mate within the same ecotype, resulting in correlated ecological and genetic differentiation. A key question is whether this pattern of evolutionary divergence is an example of incipient sympatric speciation from a single panmictic ancestral population, or whether sympatry could have resulted from multiple colonisations of the North Pacific and secondary contact between ecotypes. Here, we infer multilocus coalescent trees from >1000 nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and find evidence of incomplete lineage sorting so that the genealogies of SNPs do not all conform to a single topology. To disentangle whether uncertainty in the phylogenetic inference of the relationships among ecotypes could also result from ancestral admixture events we reconstructed the relationship among the ecotypes as an admixture graph and estimated f4-statistics using TreeMix. The results were consistent with episodes of admixture between two of the North Pacific ecotypes and the two outgroups (populations from the Southern Ocean and the North Atlantic). Gene flow may have occurred via unsampled 'ghost' populations rather than directly between the populations sampled here. Our results indicate that because of ancestral admixture events and incomplete lineage sorting, a single bifurcating tree does not fully describe the relationship among these populations. The data are therefore most consistent with the genomic variation among North Pacific killer whale ecotypes resulting from multiple colonisation events, and secondary contact may have facilitated evolutionary divergence. Thus, the present-day populations of North Pacific killer whale ecotypes have a complex ancestry, confounding the tree-based inference of ancestral geography.
Data from: Estimation of a killer whale (Orcinus orca) population's diet using sequencing analysis of DNA from feces
Estimating diet composition is important for understanding interactions between predators and prey and thus illuminating ecosystem function. The diet of many species, however, is difficult to observe directly. Genetic analysis of fecal material collected in the field is therefore a useful tool for gaining insight into wild animal diets. In this study, we used high-throughput DNA sequencing to quantitatively estimate the diet composition of an endangered population of wild killer whales (Orcinus orca) in their summer range in the Salish Sea. We combined 175 fecal samples collected between May and September from five years between 2006 and 2011 into 13 sample groups. Two known DNA composition control groups were also created. Each group was sequenced at a ~330bp segment of the 16s gene in the mitochondrial genome using an Illumina MiSeq sequencing system. After several quality controls steps, 4,987,107 individual sequences were aligned to a custom sequence database containing 19 potential fish prey species and the most likely species of each fecal-derived sequence was determined. Based on these alignments, salmonids made up >98.6% of the total sequences and thus of the inferred diet. Of the six salmonid species, Chinook salmon made up 79.5% of the sequences, followed by coho salmon (15%). Over all years, a clear pattern emerged with Chinook salmon dominating the estimated diet early in the summer, and coho salmon contributing an average of >40% of the diet in late summer. Sockeye salmon appeared to be occasionally important, at >18% in some sample groups. Non-salmonids were rarely observed. Our results are consistent with earlier results based on surface prey remains, and confirm the importance of Chinook salmon in this population's summer diet.
Data from: Vocalisations of killer whales (Orcinus orca) in the Bremer Canyon, Western Australia
To date, there has been no dedicated study in Australian waters on the acoustics of killer whales. Hence no information has been published on the sounds produced by killer whales from this region. Here we present the first acoustical analysis of recordings collected off the Western Australian coast. Underwater sounds produced by Australian killer whales were recorded during the months of February and March 2014 and 2015 in the Bremer Canyon in Western Australia. Vocalisations recorded included echolocation clicks, burst-pulse sounds and whistles. A total of 28 hours and 29 minutes were recorded and analysed, with 2376 killer whale calls (whistles and burst-pulse sounds) detected. Recordings of poor quality or signal-to-noise ratio were excluded from analysis, resulting in 142 whistles and burst-pulse vocalisations suitable for analysis and categorisation. These were grouped based on their spectrographic features into nine Bremer Canyon (BC) "call types". The frequency of the fundamental contours of all call types ranged from 600 Hz to 29 kHz. Calls ranged from 0.05 to 11.3 seconds in duration. Biosonar clicks were also recorded, but not studied further. Surface behaviours noted during acoustic recordings were categorised as either travelling or social behaviour. A detailed description of the acoustic characteristics is necessary for species acoustic identification and for the development of passive acoustic tools for population monitoring, including assessments of population status, habitat usage, migration patterns, behaviour and acoustic ecology. This study provides the first quantitative assessment and report on the acoustic features of killer whales vocalisations in Australian waters, and presents an opportunity to further investigate this little-known population.
Data from: Host‐derived population genomics data provides insights into bacterial and diatom composition of the killer whale skin
Recent exploration into the interactions and relationship between hosts and their microbiota has revealed a connection between many aspects of the host's biology, health and associated micro‐organisms. Whereas amplicon sequencing has traditionally been used to characterize the microbiome, the increasing number of published population genomics data sets offers an underexploited opportunity to study microbial profiles from the host shotgun sequencing data. Here, we use sequence data originally generated from killer whale Orcinus orca skin biopsies for population genomics, to characterize the skin microbiome and investigate how host social and geographical factors influence the microbial community composition. Having identified 845 microbial taxa from 2.4 million reads that did not map to the killer whale reference genome, we found that both ecotypic and geographical factors influence community composition of killer whale skin microbiomes. Furthermore, we uncovered key taxa that drive the microbiome community composition and showed that they are embedded in unique networks, one of which is tentatively linked to diatom presence and poor skin condition. Community composition differed between Antarctic killer whales with and without diatom coverage, suggesting that the previously reported episodic migrations of Antarctic killer whales to warmer waters associated with skin turnover may control the effects of potentially pathogenic bacteria such as Tenacibaculum dicentrarchi. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of microbiome studies from host shotgun sequencing data and highlights the importance of metagenomics in understanding the relationship between host and microbial ecology.
Data from: Killer whales (Orcinus orca) in Iceland show weak genetic structure among diverse isotopic signatures and observed movement patterns
Local adaption through ecological niche specialization can lead to genetic structure between and within populations. In the Northeast Pacific, killer whales (Orcinus orca) of the same population have uniform specialized diets that are non-overlapping with other sympatric, genetically divergent and socially isolated killer whale ecotypes. However, killer whales in Iceland show intra-population variation of isotopic niches and observed movement patterns: some individuals appear to specialise on herring and follow it year-round while others feed upon herring only seasonally or opportunistically. We investigated genetic differentiation among Icelandic killer whales with different isotopic signatures and observed movement patterns. This information is key for management and conservation purposes but also for better understanding how niche specialization drives genetic differentiation. Photo-identified individuals (N = 61) were genotyped for 22 microsatellites and a 611 bp portion of the mitochondrial control region. Photo-identification of individuals allowed linkage of genetic data to existing data on individual isotopic niche, observed movement patterns and social associations. Population subdivision into three genetic units was supported by a Discriminant Analysis of Principal Components (DAPC). Genetic clustering corresponded to the distribution of isotopic signatures, mtDNA haplotypes and observed movement patterns, but genetic units were not socially segregated. Genetic differentiation was weak (FST <0.1), suggesting ongoing gene flow or recent separation of the genetic units. Our results show that killer whales in Iceland are not as genetically differentiated, ecologically discrete or socially isolated as the Northeast Pacific prey-specialized killer whales. If any process of ecological divergence and niche specialization is taking place among killer whales in Iceland it is likely at a very early stage and has not led to the patterns observed in the Northeast Pacific.
ScienceDex guides
Understand access before you commit
These curated guides explain access requirements, typical timelines, costs, and reuse considerations for widely used research datasets.
Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.