Biologically Important Areas – A Special Issue

This special issue on Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) has been a long time in the making. It has taken considerable effort from all of the authors involved, in addition to a large body of diverse reviewers, to produce these papers. This issue originated as a side bar to the Cetacean Density and Distribution Mapping (CetMap) Working Group, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) CetSound program (http://cetsound.noaa.gov). The CetMap Working Group created a mapping tool that provides cetacean density and distribution maps that are time-, region-, and species-specific. Additionally, our CetMap tool highlights areas, seasons, and species for which there are clear data gaps.

There are eight chapters in this special issue, an introduction and seven regional manuscripts covering the U.S. East Coast, Gulf of Mexico, U.S. West Coast, Hawai’i, Gulf of Alaska, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea, and the Arctic. There are a total of 131 BIAs covering 24 species. Each chapter was written by scientific experts who have a thorough knowledge of the species and region in question. Although a common theme unites all chapters, there are regional variations in the amount and type of information available to undertake the assessment and the number and types of species covered. It was not feasible to create BIAs for every species due to either the lack of information to support the delineation or, in some cases, simply due to the time available for this effort. However, these BIAs are meant to be living documents that should be routinely reviewed and revised to expand the number of species covered and to update the existing BIAs as new information becomes available.

The BIA special issue begins with an introductory chapter that highlights the rationale and decisions made during this inaugural BIA assessment process. This is a MUST read before you delve further into a regional chapter. The “Overview and Rationale” includes all the BIA criteria and caveats and summarizes these in a digestible series of tables. We hope that this BIA special issue will be of use to scientists and managers alike and will assist with planning, analyses, and decisions regarding how to reduce adverse impacts to cetaceans resulting from human activities.

Excerpted from Van Parijs, S. M. (2015). (see citation below)

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1578/AM.41.1.2015.1

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Suggested Citations

Issue Citation
Van Parijs, S. M., Curtice, C., & Ferguson, M. C. (Eds.). (2015). Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters. Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Table of Contents/Chapter Citations
Van Parijs, S. M. (2015). Letter of Introduction to the Biologically Important Areas issue. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (p. 1). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Ferguson, M. C., Curtice, C., Harrison, J., & Van Parijs, S. M. (2015). 1. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Overview and rationale. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 2-16). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

LaBrecque, E., Curtice, C., Harrison, J., Van Parijs, S. M., & Halpin, P. N. (2015). 2. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – East coast region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 17-29). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

LaBrecque, E., Curtice, C., Harrison, J., Van Parijs, S. M., & Halpin, P. N. (2015). 3. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Gulf of Mexico region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 30-38). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Calambokidis, J., Steiger, G. H., Curtice, C., Harrison, J., Ferguson, M., Becker, E., . . . Van Parijs, S. M. (2015). 4. Biologically Important Areas for selected cetaceans within U.S. waters – West coast region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 39-53). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Baird, R. W., Cholewiak, D., Webster, D. L., Schorr, G. S., Mahaffy, S. D., Curtice, C., . . . Van Parijs, S. M. (2015). 5. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Hawai’i region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 54-64). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Ferguson, M. C., Curtice, C., & Harrison, J. (2015). 6. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Gulf of Alaska coast region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 65-78). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Ferguson, M. C., Waite, J. M. Curtice, C., Clarke, J. T., & Harrison, J. (2015). 7. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 79-93). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Clarke, J. T., Ferguson, M. C., Curtice, C., & Harrison, J. (2015). 8. Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters – Arctic region. In S. M. Van Parijs, C. Curtice, & M. C. Ferguson (Eds.), Biologically Important Areas for cetaceans within U.S. waters (pp. 94-103). Aquatic Mammals (Special Issue), 41(1). 128 pp.

Acknowledgments

Literature Cited