EMPHATIC

Context

Cetaceans are strictly protected, strategically important, sentinel species, playing important roles in ecosystem functioning, including enhancing productivity and carbon sequestration. Even so, their populations are threatened by multiple stressors with cumulative effects. Changes in cetacean distribution and evidence of a deterioration in their individual health and condition can provide an early warning of future population decline, but these are often not detected through traditional monitoring.

In the context of the identified gaps in knowledge and monitoring, EMPHATIC will address cetacean monitoring challenges related to distribution range and health, and respond to policy needs by developing relevant indicators of cetacean population status. The project combines several emerging research topics, using non-invasive techniques applicable to live animals: environmental DNA (eDNA) to assess distribution; study of the respiratory tract microbiomes; images collected with drones for photogrammetry to evaluate body condition; and hormone content to derive stress levels.

Main objectives

The overall goal of EMPHATIC is to provide tested monitoring tools, employing non-invasive, innovative, and complementary methodologies to assess cetacean distribution, diversity, and health status.

Specifically, EMPHATIC aims to:

1. generate and implement monitoring tools and analytical methodologies, addressing cetacean distribution and health;
2. deliver solutions to relevant policy actors, and regional stakeholders, including the monitoring toolbox for environmental assessments at the national and European levels;
3. engage citizens by training them for sample collection, thus increasing spatio- temporal coverage of available data;
4. enhance methodologies and develop indicators to report cetacean distribution and health and support policy-makers;
5. use biodiversity data and make it available in appropriate repositories for integrated data assessments.

Main activities

EMPHATIC will:

• implement a working methodology based on the seawater eDNA analysis for cetacean detection, and consequently for application to long-term monitoring of cetacean diversity, distribution, and ultimately population trends;
• employ a novel integrated analysis to develop a population health index based on the microbiome of the respiratory tracts (blow and necropsy samples), stress levels (blow hormone content), and body condition (photogrammetry and necropsy data);
• work to integrate the developed techniques into the survey design and analytical pipelines of existing monitoring efforts, and ultimately into long-term sampling programmes, involving citizen science-based initiatives for sample collection, and liaison with competent authorities.

The work will focus on the “Bay of Biscay and Iberian Coast” and the “Western Mediterranean” sub-regions, targeting the following species: harbour porpoise, common dolphin, bottlenose dolphin, sperm whale, and fin whale. We will engage with stakeholders who could directly (policy-makers/governmental) or indirectly (assessment or advisory bodies) leverage EMPHATIC results in support of science-driven policy. The data, protocols, and analytical pipelines generated will be published in open access repositories and databases to facilitate wider application.