The ocean giants are hanging out: Blue whale synchrony may confer advantages in energy efficiency and foraging success ...

Defined as the “precise co-occurrence of two behaviors in time”, synchrony plays a heavy hand in the lives of humans, who eat, sleep and walk together, and in the lives of animals too. Bees, wolves, and whales sleep, hunt, and forage synchronously. It is no secret that the earth is situated firmly in the middle of a mass extinction, and the disruption of collective animal behavior may be an unrecognized mechanism of accelerating biodiversity loss. But recent studies documenting population decline as a likely result of climate change-induced degradation of synchrony highlight the critical gap scientists must fill in their understanding of this phenomenon. This study assesses pair synchrony in blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus), a species that fails to return to pre-whaling numbers, and for which synchrony is almost entirely uncharacterized. Multi- sensor body-mounted tags were deployed on eight adult dyads, and subsequent analysis focused on the relationship between foraging activity and synchrony, among ...