With marine ecosystems currently undergoing global change, the physical environment is modified and established geographic distribution, phenologies and organismal interactions will be revised. Further anthropogenic stressors such as overfishing at increasingly deeper depths, exploitation of hydrocarbons and minerals, and pollution, including noise, and waste disposal aggravate the situation. These physical stressors in the environment may bring physiological traits to their adaptive limits. Some cetacean species will be able to keep up with the pace and extent of the necessary adaption and may even benefit from it with new habitats opening up for them, while others will be much more vulnerable.

We need to establish long-term and large spatial scale datasets and innovative methods to detect, quantify, and describe effects on daily and seasonal behavior, long-term trends in distribution and abundance, and animal-environment interactions. These will serve as a basis to identify and comprehend ecosystem adaptations and to consequently adjust protected species management strategies.