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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

🧵5/5 Seasonal movements on average spanned 30° of latitude, exceeding those of conspecifics with summer residency at lower latitudes. This provides first evidence of ‘leapfrog migration’ in basking sharks and highlights the value of pan-latitudinal studies.

Scientific figure shows monthly box plots of latitude from July to November of the following year. Two coloured groups represent different datasets: one set representing the dataset of this study shows boxes generally positioned farther north in summer and autumn, dropping southward during winter, then moving north again in spring; the second dataset which tagged sharks further south shows a similar but latitudinally less extensive seasonal pattern. A horizontal reference line marks the mean latitude at which sharks were tagged in the respective datasets. Small numbers above each month indicate sample sizes. An inset diagram at lower right illustrates three migration strategies using curved arrows: “chain”, “telescopic”, and “leapfrog”, showing progressively greater separation between seasonal ranges of the two groups.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

4/5 Sharks exhibited diverse diving patterns in boreal shelf habitats, and mesopelagic diel verical migration in the open ocean, consistent with known prey distributions. Movements seem unconstrained 2-25°C, with signs of surface avoidance in >25°C waters in the southern Sargasso Sea.

Multi-panel scientific figure arranged in three columns labelled B six, B nine, and B ten for three individual sharks, and three rows labelled a, b, and c. In the top row, maps of the North Atlantic and northern European seas show the individual’s PSAT track marked by small circles, coloured by high-use area and cold-water dives indicated by asterisks. The middle row shows vertical profiles of depth through time from late summer to early summer coloured by water temperature in the context of local bathymetry. A colour bar on top indicates high-use area association. The bottom row shows annual patterns of diving depth as vertical stripes across time of day, with deeper dives forming darker bands and dotted curves indicating sunset and sunrise across the year.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

🧵3/5 Sharks covered ~14,000 km annually and showed inter-annual site fidelity, returning to the tagging locations and other high-use areas in the subsequent year. This also included habitats in the northern North Sea, the southern Barents Sea, and a migration corridor around Shetland.

Two-panel figure showing basking shark movement tracks in the North Atlantic. Panel a is a map with Europe on the right and North America on the left. Coloured tracks extend from northern Norway southward and westward across the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and the central Atlantic. Points show most probable daily geolocated positions and change colour along each track to indicate month. Triangles mark PSAT pop-up locations and diamonds indicate high-quality ARGOS positions. Several pop-ups occur near northern Norway and others farther southwest in the Atlantic, with dates shown where tags detached early. Many tracks cluster in the Norwegian and Barents Seas, while others extend toward the Azores and one reaches the Sargasso Sea. Panel b plots latitude against time from early summer to winter, showing sharks to move south in autumn and returning north in spring.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

🧵2/5 #Biotelemetry revealed seasonal hotspots along the Norwegian Shelf in summer, the Iceland Basin in autumn, and the Western European Basin in boreal winter. @claudia-junge.bsky.social @nunoqueiroz29.bsky.social @thesimslab.bsky.social @peterimiller.bsky.social @lundbergpetter.bsky.social

Multi-panel scientific figure showing spatial habitat use patterns in the North Atlantic. Panels a to e display maps of utilization distribution with colour shading from light yellow to dark red indicating increasing utilization. Panel a shows annual patterns with three main hotspots labelled H one in the Norwegian Sea near northern Norway, H two in the central North Atlantic, and H three farther south in the eastern Atlantic. Seasonal panels show shifts among these regions: summer positions concentrate near H one in the Norwegian Sea, autumn shifts toward H two in the central North Atlantic, winter concentrates near H three in the eastern Atlantic, and spring shows use of both northern and southern areas.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

📢 New IMR study on movement patterns of #BaskingSharks shows that sharks tagged above the #ArcticCircle in #Norway perform repeated large-scale movements to subtropical waters and actively use the water column across habitats.🧵 1/5 👉 doi.org/10.3354/meps... @whoi.edu @thembauk.bsky.social

Map of the showing seasonal shark migration routes in the Northeast Atlantic. Sharks move to the Norwegian and Barents Seas in summer (May–July), the Icelandic Basin in autumn (September–December), and the Western European Basin in winter (January–March). Colored arrows indicate migration paths of the sharks illustrated as black silhouettes.

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Reposted by Antonia Klöcker

Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 13/05/2026

Breaching behaviour in basking sharks is far more widespread than previously thought. Watch #BiologyLetters author C Antonia Klöcker talk about the new research that used animal-borne biologgers to record breaching events over a year: cassyni.com/events/FWc8L... ‪@cakloecker.bsky.social‬ 🧪

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🧵6/6 This highlights the need for large-scale “behaviour maps” to better understand and protect marine megafauna in a changing ocean 🌊 Want to dive deeper? Check out this @cassyni.bsky.social seminar: cassyni.com/events/FWc8L...

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🧵5/6 This challenges the idea that breaching is mainly a nearshore, seasonal behaviour linked to courtship. Instead, it appears to be a routine behaviour with multiple possible functions.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🧵4/6 The fastest and highest breach—matching velocities observed in white sharks and even warm-blooded whales—was launched from over 700 m depth in the ocean’s twilight zone, something never recorded before.

Profiles of depth and vertical velocity over time during the tripple breach performed by a shark in boreal winter.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🧵 3/6 Our results show that breaching #Behaviour occurs across seasons, sexes, and habitats in the NE Atlantic—from the Barents Sea to the Azores—but is constrained by temperature, with sharks ceasing to breach in colder waters.

Multi-panel figure showing the spatiotemporal distribution of breaches in two basking sharks over the annual cycle. The two left panels show a map of the Northeast Atlantic with breach days as circles along the most
probable track as a solid line, coloured by daily breach count. Triangles mark tagging (down) and pop-up (up) sites; dashed lines show the deployment’s 95% utilization
distribution contour. On the right two actograms of breach events are shown with circles sized by number of consecutive breaches within the context of tag-recorded temperature indicated by a temperature scale from blue to red. Dashed
lines indicate sunrise/sunset for the most probable track; the top bar indicates daily displacement.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

🧵2/6 Using year-long #biologging, we recorded 577 breaches within 442 breaching events across four individuals. Events commonly consisted of a single breach, but in 21% comprised multiple breaches in short succession. @haleydolton.bsky.social @nunoqueiroz29.bsky.social @thesimslab.bsky.social

Multi-panel figure showing depth (m) over time (Δt, seconds) of basking shark underwater breaching profiles aligned around a surface event at time zero. Four panels show breaching trajectories showing single (n = 349, double (n = 64), triple (n = 17), and quadruple (n = 11) breaches. Each panel contains multiple overlaid individual trajectories shown as semi-transparent coloured lines, with individuals displayed in different colours.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

📢 New study on leaping giants in @royalsocietypublishing.org: #Breaching #Behaviour in #BaskingSharks is far more widespread than previously thought! 🦈 doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... 🧵 1/6 @biovitenskap.bsky.social @whoi.edu @thembauk.bsky.social @royalsociety.org

Drone image of a basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) filter-feeding in surface waters around the Lofoten peninsula in northern Norway. Credit: Institute of Marine Research.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

🧵 4/4 Co-authored by researchers from @thembauk.bsky.social @whoi.edu including @thesimslab.bsky.social @nunoqueiroz29.bsky.social and others. Funded by the Norwegian Research Council

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

🧵 3/4 Continuous time series revealed a wider thermal envelope than previously assumed. #BaskingSharks seem to tolerate Arctic waters below 1°C for hours and endure temperatures below 5°C for several weeks.

Depth-Temperature envelope for two basking sharks tracked for 365 days

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

🧵2/4 Diving patterns were highly context-dependent. Following topography, light, temperature, and bioluminescent biomass, #sharks seemed to be tracking their planktonic prey year-round across habitats.

Daily depth time series across habitats occupied by the sharks across the year. Dots highlight bioluminescence events.

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

#BaskingSharks of the #ArticCircle 📢Tracking the second largest #fish for a full year, our new paper invites you on a deep #dive into the life of a cold water giant between the Barents Sea and the Azores 🐟❄️🌊🏝️🇳🇴 #sharkscience #IMR @forskning.no @aquatictracking.bsky.social 🧵 1/4 🚨 rdcu.be/elqvS

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Antonia Klöcker @cakloecker.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

📢 New IMR research reveals alarming effects of overfishing on herring 🐟 Age-selective fisheries caused an 800-km poleward shift in spawning, disrupting collective memory and migration patterns. #FishMigration #FisheriesManagement www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.hi.no/hi/nyheter/2...

Fishing boat with a solid catch in the net at Buagrunnen in Møre, 2019. Foto: Per Eide / Havforskninginstituttet

Schooling fish, such as herring, are led by individuals with extensive experience.
Foto: Havforskningsinstituttet

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