Modelling Distribution, Relative Abundance and Threats in a Highly Mobile Marine Vertebrate: Implications for Spatio-temporal Management of Minke Whales in Western Scottish Waters
North Atlantic minke whales are one of the most commonly seen cetaceanspecies in Hebridean waters, yet we know very little about their lives, including, knowing where they go once they have left UK and Irish waters each year. What we do know is that they face a range of anthropogenic threats, including entanglement in fishing gear, noise pollutions, collision risk with vessels and offshore devices. In addition to this, on a broader scale there are also concerns that minke whales are at risk from climate change.
The project aims to develop existing projects held in partnership between the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, Marine Science Scotland and Heriot Watt University. It uses existing visual and acoustic datasets to analyse how the distribution of minke whales changes throughout the year. In addition to this, it investigates the distribution of potential threats to whales from creel fishing and marine traffice and where these threats overlap with whales in time and space. A greater comprehension of changes in distribution and densities will provide decisionmakers in the Scottish government with more information to facilitate the development of more effective conservation management plans.
Supervisors
Professor Ben Wilson, SAMS UHI
Dr Denise Risch, SAMS
Monica Arso Civil, Marine Scotland Science
Dr Lauren Hartney-Mills, HWDT
Dr Lauren McWhinnie, HWU
Funder
NERC Studentships awarded to the SUPER Doctoral Training Partnership
University
University of the Highlands and Islands
Peer Reviewed Publications
Akkaya A, Awbery T, Ozdemir C, Israpilova L, Kamsteeg S, Dalkiliç A (2026) Producing Local Common Bottlenose Dollphin Abundance Estimates to Fill Species Knowledge Gaps in the Eastern Mediterranean Surrounding Türkiye. Marine Mammal Science 42 (2): e70140 https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.70140
Akkaya, A., Dalkılıç, A., Awbery, T., Ozdemir, C. and Lyne, P., 2025. First documentation of rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea of Türkiye. Journal of the Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment, 31(1)
Bellingeri, M., Nebuloni, A., La Manna, G., Akkaya, A., Alessi, J., Arcangeli, A., Ascheri, D., Awbery, T., Azzinari, G., Azzinari, C., Azzolin, M. et al., 2025. Investigating the presence of different bottlenose dolphin ecotypes in the Mediterranean Sea. Scientific Reports, 15(1), p.5526.
Soster F*, Awbery T*, Vérité-Taulet N, Zammit T, Terribile K (2025) Harnessing citizen science for marine conservation in Malta: a comparative analysis of GAM and MaxEnt models in bottlenose dolphin habitat mapping. PeerJ 13:e19804. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.19804
Soster F, Galdies C, Awbery T, Gauci A, Metzger B, Barbara N, Díaz López B (2025) Common bottlenose dolphin habitat suitability in Malta's coastal waters as a human-altered environment. Marine Environmental Research 211, 107422. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107422
Akkaya, A., Awbery, T., Lyne, P., Nease, K., Haas, C., Le Henaff, A., Murray, B., Rudd, L., Yıldırım, B., Oruç, A. (2023) Short-beaked common dolphins of Dilek Peninsula National Park, South Aegean Sea:: Preliminary results on group structure, spatial distribution, behavioural patterns, whistle characteristics and behavioural context. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management, 24(1), pp.77-93.
Akkaya, A., Awbery, T., Medcalf, K., Lyne, P., Cipriano, G., Alvarenga, M., İsrapilova, L., Atalan, Y., Eikelenboom, O., Ricci, P. and Crugliano, R. (2023) Initial results on the variation of whistle characteristics of bottlenose dolphins from two neighbouring regions of the Mediterranean Sea: Northern Ionian and Southern Adriatic Sea. Frontiers in Marine Science, 10, p.1099576.
Glarou, M., Kerametsidis, G., Akkaya, A., Beqiri, K., Nikpaljevic, N., Awbery, T., Bakiu, R. and Geijer, C.K. (2022) Using off-the-shelf GPS loggers to assess co-occurrence between marine mammals and small-scale fisheries: a pilot study from the Mediterranean Sea. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 102(5), pp.322-332.
Rudd, L.E., Awbery, T., Waller, R., Crowe, M., Bauer, J., Jacquemart, A., Nikpaljevic, N. and Akkaya, A. (2022) The effect of commercial and artisanal fishing practices on the behavioral budget of bottlenose dolphins off the coast of Montenegro, South Adriatic Sea. Marine Mammal Science, 38(3), pp.990-1006.
Awbery, T., Akkaya, A., Lyne, P., Rudd, L., Hoogenstrijd, G., Nedelcu, M., Kniha, D., Erdoğan, M.A., Persad, C., Amaha Öztürk, A. and Öztürk, B., 2022. Spatial distribution and encounter rates of delphinids and deep diving cetaceans in the eastern Mediterranean Sea of Turkey and the extent of overlap with areas of dense marine traffic. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, p.860242.
Stephens, G., Bas, A.A., Hardy, J., Awbery, T., Rudd, L., Abbiss, L., Araç, N. and Lyne, P., 2021. Sightings and stranding reports of Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) in the Levantine Sea, with recent sightings from Turkey. J. Cetacean Res. Manage., 22(1), pp.55-60.
Awbery, T., and Akkaya, A., 2020. A Worrying Decline in the Presence of Bottlenose Dolphins in Montenegro & the Importance of Citizen Science During COVID-19, ACCOBAMS’ FINS Journal, 10.
Akkaya, A., Awbery, T., Lyne, P., Cipriano, G., Maglietta, R., Renò, V., Fanizza, C., Carlucci, R., 2020. Comparison of acoustic patterns recorded for the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) in the Northern Ionian Sea (Central Mediterranean Sea) and in the North-western Levantine Sea (Eastern Mediterranean Sea), paper presented to 2020 IMEKO TC-19 International Workshop on Metrology for the Sea, Naples, Italy, October 5-7, 2020.
Akkaya, A., Lyne, P., Schulz, X., Awbery, T., Capitain, S., Rosell, B.F., Yıldırım, B., İlkılınç, C., Relva, J.V., Clark, H. and van Walsum, L., 2020. Preliminary results of cetacean sightings in the eastern Mediterranean Sea of Turkey. Journal of the Black Sea/Mediterranean Environment, 26(1).
Clarkson, J., Christiansen, F., Awbery, T., Abbiss, L., Nikpaljevic, N. and Akkaya, A., 2020. Non-targeted tourism affects the behavioural budgets of bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus in the South Adriatic (Montenegro). Marine Ecology Progress Series, 638, pp.165-176.
Conference talks
20 Years of Data to Assess the Potential Risk of Entanglement on Minke Whales, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, St Andrews, Scotland, 2025.
Using Dynamic Habitat Suitability Models to Assess the Potential Risk of Entanglement of Minke Whales on the West Coast of Scotland, Society for Marine Mammalogy, Perth, Australia, 2024.
Two Decades of Dynamic Habitat Models Reveal Potential Entanglement Risk for Minke Whales, Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, Glasgow, Scotland, 2024.
Dynamic Habitat Suitability Models of Minke Whales on the West Coast of Scotland, European Cetacean Society, Catania, Italy, 2024.
The Application of a North Atlantic-wide Minke Whale Detector to a Large-Scale Recording Array on the West Coast of Scotland (and why re-training is important!), DCLDE, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2024.
Dynamic Habitat Suitability Models of Minke Whales on the West Coast of Scotland, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, Liverpool, England, 2024.
Are Minke Whales Respecting the Line on the Map that We’ve Drawn for Them?, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, St Andrews, Scotland, 2023.
UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, St Andrews, Online, 2022.
Awbery, T., Rudd, L. and Akkaya, A., 2021. In: 5th Conference on Cetacean Conservation in South Mediterranean Countries. Assessing the Overlap of Fishing and Bottlenose Dolphins in an Understudied Region of the Mediterranean.
Awbery, T., Akkaya, A. 2019. Bottlenose dolphins of Turkey – from the unknown to the known. World Marine Mammals Conference, 8th December 2019, Barcelona
Poster presentations
Soster, F., Awbery, T., Vérité–Taulet, N., Zammit, T. and Terribile, K., 2025. Encounter rates and habitat use of common bottlenose dolphins in Malta’s coastal waters, European Cetacean Society Conference, May 2025, Azores.
Medcalf, K., de Haas, T., Awbery, T., Ziltener, A., Habitat Selection of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Aduncus) in The Northern Red Sea, Egypt. Society for Marine Mammalogy 2024, November 2024, Perth, Australia.
Awbery, T., Mouy, X., Davis, G., Fenandez-Betelu, Iorio-Merlo, V., Van Parijs, S., Risch, D., Wilson, B., Onoufriou, J., Hartny-Mills, L., McWhinnie, L., 2024 – DCLDE, May 2024, Rotterdam, Netherland.
de Haas, T., White, E., Awbery, T., Akkaya, A., A preliminary report on the overlap between the distribution of Tursiops Truncatus and Cruise Ships in Montenegrin territorial waters between 2017 and 2021. European Cetacean Society Conference 2023, April 2023, Catania, Sicily.
Awbery, T., Akkaya, A., Clark, H., Nikpaljevic, N., Abbiss, L., Clarkson, J., Hardy, J., Beqiri, K., Konomi, A., Rudd, L., Basmaci, M., Bakiu, R. The Identification of Critical Habitats for Cetaceans in the Southern Adriatic Sea. [Poster] World Marine Mammal Conference. 9th-12th December 2019, Barcelona.
Basmaci, M., Akkaya, A., Awbery, T., Stephens, G., Nikpaljevic, N., Abbiss, L., Clarkson, J., Dolphins of Montenegro - walk the walk, talk the talk. [Poster] World Marine Mammal Conference. 9th-12th December 2019, Barcelona.
Akkaya, A., Gordon, J., Lyne, P., Yıldırım, B., Eleman, A., Ilkilinc, C., Ulusoy, E., Kurt, M., Awbery, T., 2019. From Small Cetaceans to the Great Whales of the East. [Poster] World Marine Mammal Conference. 9th-12th December 2019, Barcelona.
Awbery, T., Lyne, P., Abbiss, L., Clark, H., Nikpaljevic, N., Bakiu., R, Beqiri, K., Konomi, A., Todorović S., Basmaci, M., Clarkson, J., Rudd., L, Guimard, E., Van Walsum, L., Akkaya, A. The Delineation of Critical Habitats for the Conservation of Cetaceans in Three Understudied Areas of the Mediterranean. [Poster] 7th Meeting of the Parties to ACCOBAMS. 5th-8th November 2019, Istanbul.
Professional training courses
ACCOBAMS Highly Qualified MMO/PAM Operator
Fieldwork experience
August 2024 - Vessel-based surveys to document the distribution of marine mammals in southern Tanzania
March 2021 – Giant Guardians of the Deep Seas Spring Expedition – A week leading the collection of visual acoustic data on cetaceans in the eastern Mediterranean waters of Turkey
July 2020 – Giant Guardians of the Deep Seas Summer Expedition – Two weeks collecting visual acoustic data on cetaceans in the eastern Mediterranean waters of Turkey
April 2019 – Two weeks aboard the scientific research and outreach vessel ‘The Independence’ leading data collection on cetaceans in Montenegrin waters and performing outreach and networking in Croatia.
August 2018 – May 2021 - Smaller, single day boat-based surveys in Montenegro and the Istanbul Strait, Aegean Sea and Levantine Sea of Turkey as well as land-based theodolite operations in Montenegro, Albania and Turkey.
Teaching experience
Three years of in-person and remote teaching of GIS, Survey techniques, Passive Acoustic Monitoring and Statistics for DMAD – Marine Mammals Research Association. Delivering ACCOBAMS’ Highly Qualified MMO/PAM Operator courses.
Awards
2025 Best Long Talk, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy
2025 UHI and SAMS Student of the Year
2024 Society for Marine Mammalogy Conference in Perth, Australia: Conference Theme Award
2014 Runner-up Best Talk by a European Researcher, Society for Marine Mammalogy
2024 Runner-up Best Student Talk, Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland
2024 Best Long Talk, UK and Irish Regional Student Chapter of the Society for Marine Mammalogy
2023 Runner-up Best Student Talk, Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland
2019 Best Talk by a Young Researcher, IMEKO TC-19 International Workshop on Meteorology for the Sea
Employment
2018-2021 - Senior Research Associate, DMAD – Marine Mammals Research Association
Higher Education
2014 - MSc Surveying Land and Environmental Management, University of Exeter
2012 - BSc Conservation Biology and Ecology, University of Exeter