The ecology of collective behavior across oceanic scales

Oceanic ecosystems comprise Earth's largest living space. In these vast, fluid, and mostly dark ecosystems, resources aggregate in patchy, fleeting hotspots of biological activity. These conditions pose immense challenges both for resident lifeforms and researchers seeking to elucidate their behavior. How do oceanic predators find ephemeral patches of plenty in their vast & dynamic home? How can researchers make the observations required to understand & steward life at sea? Here I show how coordinated observations of predators, prey, and the fluid environment in which they interact are unveiling the ecology of oceanic collective behavior. I focus primarily on the mechanisms underlying blue whales’ collective foraging and migration. I present recent discoveries made across oceanic scales, showing how physical oceanographic forcing mediates the distribution and behavior of blue whales’ obligate krill prey, which in turn influence blue whales’ production and use of social information. Investigating these questions under the unique conditions of ocean ecosystems can deepen our understanding of how biophysical variation and information shape behavioral ecology and evolution.