Speaker: Luke Rendell, HMSC Lavern Weber Visiting Scientist, School of Biology, University of St. U.K.

Topic: Expanding our ideas about the diversity of habitat use and population structure in a dominant mesopelagic predator, the sperm whale

Sperm whales are a key component of pelagic ecosystems, taking significant biomass from mesopelagic waters. They are often characterised as monotonous harvesters of deep water squid, but we are beginning to understand more about the complexity of their behaviour. As a number of long-term projects begin to mature, we are gaining new insights into flexibility and diversity in how sperm whale populations are structure and how they use and partition their habitats. I will review these new results from Mediterranean, Caribbean and Pacific populations, and argue that appreciating this behavioural variation will be crucial in understanding their role in pelagic ecosystems.