Effects of intense storm events on dolphin occurrence and foraging behavior.
Sci Rep
; 10(1): 19247, 2020 11 06.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33159135
ABSTRACT
As storms become increasingly intense and frequent due to climate change, we must better understand how they alter environmental conditions and impact species. However, storms are ephemeral and provide logistical challenges that prevent visual surveys commonly used to understand marine mammal ecology. Thus, relatively little is known about top predators' responses to such environmental disturbances. In this study, we utilized passive acoustic monitoring to characterize the response of bottlenose dolphins to intense storms offshore Maryland, USA between 2015 and 2017. During and following four autumnal storms, dolphins were detected less frequently and for shorter periods of time. However, dolphins spent a significantly higher percentage of their encounters feeding after the storm than they did before or during. This change in foraging may have resulted from altered distributions and behavior of their prey species, which are prone to responding to environmental changes, such as varied sea surface temperatures caused by storms. It is increasingly vital to determine how these intense storms alter oceanography, prey movements, and the behavior of top predators.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Comportamento Predatório
/
Ecossistema
/
Golfinho Nariz-de-Garrafa
Limite:
Animals
País/Região como assunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Rep
Ano de publicação:
2020
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos