I joined the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary research team in 2005 and completed a large part of my PhD research there on fine scale foraging decisions of humpback whales. Theresa, a recent graduate from OSU, picked up the torch looking at the role of prey in structuring predator foraging decisions, using two vessels, archival tags, and EK60 acoustics. Kirchner et al. found that whale foraging bout size was linked to inter-patch-interval thus highlighting the role that spatial scale of prey plays in structuring the environment.
T. Kirchner, D. Wiley. E. Hazen, S. Parks, L. Torres, A. Friedlaender, 2018. Hierarchical foraging movement of humpback whales relative to the structure of their prey. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 607:237-250. doi: 10.3354/meps12789. PDF