Research initiatives within the MRI Whale Unit are managed within a series of Research Themes, each of which comprise Research Programmes of individual Research Projects. Research on particular species may extend across Themes or Programmes
| Research Projects | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Theme A: Recovering Whales- The role of large baleen whales in the Southern Hemisphere Ocean Ecosystems | |||
Programme1 | Large Migratory Whale Population Abundances and Trends | ||
| Project 1 | Antarctic Blue Whale Population Abundance and Trends | ||
| Project 2 | Southern Right Whale Population Abundance and Trends - Cape / Namibia / Mozambique | ||
| Project 3 | East and west coast Humpback Whale Abundance and Trends | ||
| Project 4 | Acoustic monitoring of seasonal presence and abundance of baleen whales on the historical west coast whaling ground | ||
| Programme 2 | Cetacean Trophic Ecology | ||
| Project 5 | Ice – edge humpback, minke and blue whales | ||
| Project 6 | West coast humpback and right whale feeding | ||
| Project 7 | Southern Ocean right whales | ||
Theme B: Building a Conservation Inventory of South Africa’s Cetacean Fauna. | |||
| Programme 3 | Abundance of Key Resident Species | ||
| Project 9 | Bryde’s whale abundance (possible links to the trophic ecology Programme above through stable isotope analyses) | ||
| Programme 4 | Establishment of baseline biological data (using Collections and Sighting/Specimen Knowledge Base) for the development of conservation data inventories. | ||
| Project 10 | Biogeography, Seasonality and Distribution Patterns of Cetacean Species | ||
| Project 11 | Taxonomic, Genetic and Anatomical Studies | ||
Theme C: African Links – Building African Marine Mammal Research Capacity | |||
| Programme 12 | West coast of southern Africa | ||
| Project 12 | Establishing links between southern right whales in SA and Namibia | ||
| Project 13 | Establishing links between SA west coast humpback whales and those in Namibia, Angola and Gabon. | ||
| Project 14 | Establishing distribution and seasonality links of large baleen whales off Namibia and SA through autonomous acoustic recording systems. | ||
| Programme 13 | The African East Coast and the Western Indian Ocean | ||
| Project 15 | Monitoring abundance and status of dugongs in Mozambique | ||
| Project 16 | Establishing movement links of humpback whales between SA and Mozambique, Madagascar and the Western Indian ocean archipelago breeding grounds | ||
| Project 17 | Monitoring occurrence of southern right whales in Mozambique and links between SA and Mozambique | ||