Predicting Regions of North Atlantic Right Whale, Eubaleana Glacialis, Habitat Suitability in the Gulf of Maine

North Atlantic right whales, Eubaleana glacialis, are critically endangered. Understanding the role environmental conditions play in E. glacialis habitat suitability is key to determining the regions in need of protection in order to conserve the species. This study uses three different species distribution modeling (SDM) techniques to determine which environmental variables appear to have the greatest influence on E. glacialis habitat preference in Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine. Generalized additive models (GAMs), boosted regression trees (BRTs), and Maxent SDMs incorporating sea surface temperature, deep water temperature (depth = 50m), prey abundance (specifically the copepod Calanus fincmarchicus), bathymetry, and the Lyapunov exponent (σ, an index of small-scale fluid dynamics) are produced and the biological implications are analyzed. The model outputs suggest that over a given year deep water temperature and sea surface temperature are generally stronger predictors of E. glacialis habitat in comparison to prey abundance, bathymetry, and σ. The relative importance of each environmental variable changes seasonally, with an increase in the importance of prey abundance in the summer and an increase in the importance of temperature in the winter. Separate analysis of the seasonal patterns of σ in the Gulf of Maine suggests seasonal variation with peaks in small-scale activity that overlap with E. glacialis sightings in key habitats. These results indicate that E. glacialis are susceptible to the effects of climate change and that small-scale fluid dynamics play a role in habitat suitability. Tuned models are then used to characterize potential seasonal E. glacialis habitat preferences in the Gulf of Maine projected to 2050 conditions.