Exposure to whale watching vessels affects dive ascents and resting behavior in sperm whales

Movement and acoustic data obtained from multi-sensor biologging devices are fundamental to assess the behavior of marine megafauna and also their responses to anthropogenic activities. We joined movement and acoustic data on 24 sperm whales instrumented with DTAGs, between 2017 and 2019 in the Azores archipelago, Portugal. Data were filtered to remove: a) the first foraging dive cycle or 1-hour of non-foraging period after tagging; b) periods that might be affected by the presence of the research boat; c) vertical orientation shift periods, during vertical resting. The dataset is presented in “per minute” (i.e., every row corresponds to 1 minute data) as: the sperm whale identification (<strong>Pma_ID</strong>); the type of DTAG used (<strong>Tag_type</strong>; Tag_type will be either DTAG-3 or DTAG-4); the dive number (<strong>Dive#</strong>; when Dive#=0 means the individual is at or near the surface); the time in seconds (<strong>Time</strong>) and local hour in UTC (<strong>Local_hour</strong>); the depth in meters (<strong>Depth</strong>); the pitch (<strong>Pitch</strong>), standard deviation of pitch (<strong>Std_pitch</strong>), roll (<strong>Roll</strong>), standard deviation of roll (<strong>Std_roll</strong>) and heading (<strong>Heading</strong>) of the individual (all in radians); the vertical velocity in m/s (<strong>Vertical_velocity</strong>); the Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration in m/s2 (<strong>ODBA</strong>); the number of buzzes (<strong>Buzz</strong>); the descent, bottom, ascent, surface, search and foraging phases (<strong>Descent_phase</strong>, <strong>Bottom_phase</strong>, <strong>Ascent_phase</strong>, <strong>Surface_phase</strong>, <strong>Search_phase</strong> and <strong>Foraging_phase</strong>, respectively; “1” means the occurrence of the respective phase); the non-foraging periods that may contain resting (horizontal and vertical), socialization and travelling (<strong>Non_foraging</strong>); the diel period (<strong>Day_night</strong>; Day=1; Night=0); the presence of whale watching vessels per foraging dive (<strong>Vessel_per_dive</strong>); the presence of whale watching vessels per non-foraging periods (<strong>Vessel_non_foraging</strong>); the periods that were visually observed from the research boat (<strong>Visual_Researchboat</strong>); and the fluking or gliding behavior (<strong>Fluking_Gliding</strong>; Fluking=1; Gliding=0). For further details please check Oliveira et al. 2022 “Exposure to whale watching vessels affects dive ascents and resting behavior in sperm whales”.