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Since 2009, researchers from the Nicholas School of the Environment have applied an array of tools to gain insight into populations and behaviors of humpback and minke whales, Adélie and Gentoo penguins, and fur seals in Antarctica. Learning more about these species and how they interact with their environment can reveal signs of ecological changes happening in the region.

Nicholas School faculty involved in this work include Patrick Halpin, head of the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab; David Johnston, head of the Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing (MaRRS) Lab; Douglas Nowacek, the Randolph K. Repass and Sally-Christine Rodgers University Distinguished Professor of Conservation Technology in Environment and Engineering; and Andy Read, the Stephen A. Toth Professor of Marine Biology and outgoing director of the ���Ĵ�ý Marine Lab.

The team also frequently collaborates with Ari Friedlaender, a professor at UC Santa Cruz and former Ph.D. student who motivated Nicholas School faculty to establish this research program, and former undergraduate student Logan Pallin, now a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz.

The following photo album offers a flavor of the research these investigators have conducted over the years.

Research trips to the Western Antarctic Peninsula often involve a week’s worth of travel, including a multi-day trip across the Drake Passage, notorious for rough seas. Most field work occurs from January to May — summer and fall in the southern hemisphere. Each trip can last for more than a month.​​​​

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Hunted to near extinction during the era of commercial whaling, humpback whale populations have bounced back across the globe. Several populations forage in Antarctic waters for fish and shrimp-like crustaceans called krill.

In one hunting tactic, humpbacks blow underwater bubbles that corral and concentrate their prey. Viewed from above, these so-called bubble nets materialize in curving, pointillistic patterns.

Although this strategy has been well documented among humpbacks in North Atlantic waters, researchers noticed the behavior among humpbacks foraging along the Western Antarctic Peninsula only in the last 20 years, according to a by Johnston and colleagues.

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Over the past 50 years, rapid warming of the Western Antarctic Peninsula has contributed to a decline in seasonal ice cover that krill rely on for a refuge. This habitat loss, coupled with pressure from a commercial krill fishing industry operating in the region, could lead to a decline in krill.

In 2023, Nicholas School researchers and collaborators reported results from the first study investigating the between krill numbers and humpback pregnancy. They found that variation in krill affects pregnancy rates, suggesting that future humpback conservation and management plans should factor in krill availability.

Read is now working on a paper with Friedlaender and Pallin that offers suggestions for how humpback whale research can inform krill fishery management.

“These [fishing boats] are really big vessels that are hoovering up enormous quantities of krill, and there’s concern about potential conflicts between that fishery and predators like seals, penguins, seabirds and [other] whales,” Read explains.

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Because humpbacks are highly mobile, they can serve as sentinels of ecological changes that could affect other Antarctic species. Tools used to collect data on humpbacks include digital acoustic tags, which provide information on whale behavior and calls, as well as ambient sounds.

Duke researchers are now optimizing the ability to deploy these tags via drones to reduce environmental disturbance and improve the safety of whales and people alike.

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Look closely, and you can see the specks of digital acoustic tags on these minke whales.

In 2022, Nicholas School researchers and collaborators provided the first data on minke whale — specifically, male-female ratios and pregnancy rates — along the Western Antarctic Peninsula using DNA collected from dozens of individuals.

To gather DNA samples, the researchers deployed a dart that remove a pinky-size amount of whale skin and blubber, then pops off and floats for easy retrieval. The work was the first to use non-lethal approaches to studying the species, according to the authors. The results provide a baseline that can inform future studies on minke whale population status, they noted.

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Advances in technology have been pivotal to research on Antarctic fauna in the field, according to Johnston (pictured, with a drone).

“Most of these [studies] would never have happened without our teams’ ability to use drones to survey populations and measure individual animals and our push to build analytical and [artificial intelligence] tools to address the huge amounts of data we collect via new technology like drones, tags and satellites.”

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Johnston, MaRRS Lab lead engineer Julian Dale and collaborators have used drones to study Adélie penguins, one of two penguin species found only in Antarctica (the other is the emperor penguin).

In 2020, they described an efficient, accurate to counting Adélie penguins (the specks you see here) that could improve population surveys. The method uses drones to first locate penguin colonies by searching for guano, then counts birds based on the heat they emit.

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The National Science Foundation recently ended charter agreements with the nation’s only federally funded Antarctic research vessels, the Research Vessel/Icebreaker (RVIB) Nathaniel B. Palmer and Antarctic Research and Supply Vessel (ARSV) Laurence M. Gould (pictured in the background).

“Understanding the world’s polar regions is increasingly important as our Earth warms. Climate change is being felt most keenly in many polar regions, and understanding these dynamics is critical to our ability to predict and prepare for such changes. We should be increasing our investment in polar research, not pulling back from it,” Read says.