Deep-Diving Marine Mammals: Behavioral and Physiological Secrets Unveiled

Deep-diving mammals have developed unique adaptations to meet the energetic, sensory, and behavioral demands of life beneath the ocean surface. Species such as northern elephant seals, sperm whales, beaked whales, and other diving cetaceans routinely undertake prolonged dives to forage, travel, and rest in environments where pressure increases rapidly, oxygen is limited, prey are patchily distributed, and opportunities for recovery are constrained. These conditions raise important questions about how diving mammals balance aerobic capacity, oxygen conservation, thermoregulation, sleep, predator avoidance, and nutritional demands across different life-history stages and ecological contexts. Recent research using biotelemetry, biologging, stable-isotope analysis, physiological monitoring, and animal-borne video has revealed that diving behavior is closely linked to prey distribution, body condition, reproductive state, and environmental variability. Studies have also identified flexible patterns of surface recovery, specialized sleep strategies, and complex relationships between foraging behavior and exposure to contaminants such as mercury. However, important gaps remain in linking measurements collected at different biological scales, from cellular and organ-level function to individual behavior, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes. Further investigation is needed to clarify how pinnipeds and cetaceans integrate physiological and behavioral responses over time, how these responses vary among species and environments, and whether they can buffer the effects of climate change, pollution, fisheries interactions, and other anthropogenic pressures.

This Research Topic aims to advance an integrative understanding of the physiological and behavioral adaptations that enable marine mammals (including pinnipeds and cetaceans)to dive deeply, forage efficiently, sleep, and maintain energetic balance in challenging ocean environments. We welcome studies examining how oxygen transport and utilization, cardiovascular regulation, metabolism, thermoregulation, sensory systems, and neuromuscular function contribute to diving performance and recovery. Contributions may address the mechanisms underlying the aerobic diving limit, the regulation of sleep during aquatic and terrestrial phases, and the trade-offs among foraging, locomotion, vigilance, and rest. We also encourage research testing how age, sex, reproductive status, body condition, season, prey availability, and environmental change influence whole-organism performance. Comparative and hypothesis-driven studies are particularly encouraged, as are investigations connecting individual physiology and ethology with contaminant exposure, health, conservation status, and population consequences. By bringing together complementary approaches, this Research Topic will help identify general principles of deep-diving biology while recognizing the ecological, physiological, and evolutionary diversity of marine mammals.

To gather further insights into the physiology, ethology, and whole-organism biology of deep-diving marine mammals, this Research Topic will focus on free-ranging and managed pinnipeds and cetaceans across relevant life-history stages and marine environments, while emphasizing connections between mechanisms, behavior, ecology, and conservation. We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

Physiological mechanisms underlying the aerobic diving limit and post-dive recovery
Oxygen storage, transport, utilization, and conservation during prolonged dives
Cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, and thermoregulatory adaptations in pinnipeds and cetaceans
Diving strategies, foraging ecology, prey capture, and ecological energetics
Sleep architecture, sleep regulation, and sleep–foraging trade-offs
Age-, sex-, reproductive-, and body-condition-related variation in diving performance
Whole-organism responses to pressure, temperature, hypoxia, and other environmental stressors
Comparative diving adaptations in seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins, and porpoises
Biotelemetry, biologging, acoustic monitoring, animal-borne video, and innovative tracking technologies
Stable-isotope, fatty-acid, and other approaches to diet and habitat-use reconstruction
Contaminant exposure, including mercury transfer, trophic pathways, and physiological effects
Links between individual physiology, behavior, health, and population dynamics
Comparative evolution of deep-diving adaptations among marine mammal taxa
Conservation physiology and responses to climate change, pollution, fisheries, noise, and disturbance
Integration of molecular, cellular, organ-system, individual, and ecosystem-level approaches

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Deep-Diving Marine Mammals, Cetaceans, Elephant Seals, Aerobic, Foraging, Sleep patterns, Biotelemetry, Contaminant Transfer, Physiology, Ecosystem, Twilight zone

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.