Athena Brown: Chart Toppers: Two decades of song trends on a humpback whale migratory corridor

<p dir="ltr">Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing complex, socially learned songs that change over time via evolution and revolutions. In the South Pacific, songs are shared between connected breeding grounds. Here, we investigate song evolution observed on the Cook Islands migratory corridor from 1998-2018, where the song recorded each season reflects the migratory streams of whales using the corridor. From 75 songs we identified 16 song types, including at least nine revolutionary ones. All but one song type (2012) matched to previously identified song types in the New Caledonia breeding ground. In three seasons (2014, 2015, 2016) multiple song types were recorded within a season, indicating either multiple migratory streams using the corridor or a shift away from the pattern seen in previous years. The Cook Islands’ migratory corridor represents an important location for singing behaviour, highlighting the importance of protecting such spaces for migratory species.</p>