Assessment of beaked whale foraging

New technologies, like eDNA, offer a powerful tool to improve tactical readiness in the maritime domain with situational awareness of marine species distribution and abundance to inform immediate tactical decisions and operational readiness over large scales. In particular, the combination of scalable, large-volume and adaptive sampling uniquely provide technological advantages for finding targets in the vast deep ocean, including marine species that significantly overlap in both space and time with ongoing Naval activities, as well as rare biological and particulate signals of interest. Here, our objective is to characterize marine species distributions using new eDNA approaches, cutting-edge autonomous sampling technology, adaptive sampling, and acoustic sensing analyses to better inform and support tactical and operational forecasting. Towards these ends, we propose to use a large-volume autonomous eDNA sampler with in situ filtration mounted on to a CTD rosette to conduct large-volume vertical profiling and adaptive sampling. We will also deploy a calibrated broadband, multifrequency scientific echosounder system to detect the sound scattering layers at relevant depths. The synthesis of eDNA with acoustic signals and adaptive sampling will contribute to a better understanding of marine species distribution as well as acoustic scattering and attenuation (bio-alpha) on acoustic propagation in the underwater environment.