Four centuries of commercial whaling eroded 11,000 years of population stability in bowhead whales

# Four centuries of commercial whaling eroded 11,000 years of population stability in bowhead whales *Published: 2026 Apr 2* Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia. (3)Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. (4)Bioinformatics Research Center, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark. (5)Department of Anthropology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. (6)Department of Anthropology, Trent University, Peterborough, ON, Canada. (7)Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. (8)Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Center, 9296 Tromsø, Norway. (9)Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. (10)Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; Center for Global Mountain Biodiversity, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. (11)Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Electronic address: elinelorenzen@sund.ku.dk. Bowhead whales were heavily exploited during commercial whaling between the 16th and 20th centuries. Current and near-future climate warming poses a new threat. Assessing bowhead vulnerability to climatic change remains challenging due to insufficient knowledge regarding responses to past climates and pre-whaling population dynamics. We integrate paleogenomics and stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) from 206 bowhead fossils from the Atlantic Arctic with paleoclimate and ecological modeling based on 823 radiocarbon-dated fossils, including 140 from this study. We find long-term resilience of bowheads to Holocene environmental perturbations, with no detectable changes in genetic diversity or population structure. Simulated commercial-whaling-driven genetic and fitness changes indicate that population subdivision and loss of genetic diversity are unlikely to be fully realized, despite nearly a century since whaling ceased. Furthermore, even in simulated complete population recovery scenarios, overall fitness did not return to pre-whaling levels, potentially compromising the future resilience of bowhead whales. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.02.022