Residence Patterns, Group Characteristics, and Association Patterns of Bottlenose Dolphins Near Sanibel Island, Florida

Mercury concentrations in Atlantic bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the Indian River Lagoon, Florida: Patterns of spatial and temporal distribution.

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabiting the Indian River Lagoon, FL (IRL) have tissue mercury concentrations among the highest reported worldwide. Analysis of total mercury (THg) concentrations in blood collected between 2003 and 2012 showed a significant linear decrease over time (p=0.04). Significant differences in the spatial distribution of THg in resident IRL dolphins were also...

Evaluation of Potential Protective Factors Against Metabolic Syndrome in Bottlenose Dolphins: Feeding and Activity Patterns of Dolphins in Sarasota Bay, Florida

Free-ranging bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) living in Sarasota Bay, Florida appear to have a lower risk of developing insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome compared to a group of dolphins managed under human care. Similar to humans, differences in diet and activity cycles between these groups may explain why Sarasota dolphins have lower insulin, glucose, and lipids. To identify po...

12: Auditory Masking Patterns in Bottlenose Dolphins From Anthropogenic and Natural Noise Sources

The primary goal of the current project is to better understand auditory masking by determining masking patterns for a broad variety of environmental noise types, and define the mechanisms that govern auditory signal processing in environmental noise. Behavioral threshold methods developed at SSC San Diego (Finneran, Carder, Schlundt, & Ridgway, 2005) allow thresholds to be obtained rapidly (i....

Spatial and Social Sexual Segregation Patterns in Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops aduncus)

Sexual segregation seems to be common in bottlenose dolphins, whereby males and females live in different pods that mix mainly for mating. Male dolphins often use aggressive behaviour to mate with females, while females with calves may have different activity and dietary requirements to males and different susceptibility to predation. We investigated the degree of spatial and social sexual segr...

Auditory Masking Patterns in Bottlenose Dolphins from Anthropogenic and Natural Sound Sources