Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:03:45.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habitat preferences and evidence for niche partitioning amongst cetaceans in the waters between Gabon and Angola, eastern tropical Atlantic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2012

Caroline R. Weir ,
Colin D. MacLeod  and
Graham J. Pierce
Caroline R. Weir*
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences (Zoology), University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, AB24 2TZ, UK Ketos Ecology, 4 Compton Road, West Charleton, Kingsbridge, Devon TQ7 2BP, UK
Colin D. MacLeod
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences (Zoology), University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, AB24 2TZ, UK
Graham J. Pierce
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences (Zoology), University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, AB24 2TZ, UK
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: C.R. Weir, Ketos Ecology, 44 Lord Hay's Grove, Old Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 1WS, UK email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The habitat preferences and niches of eight cetacean species inhabiting eastern tropical Atlantic waters between Angola and Gabon (1°N–11°S latitude) were examined. A total of 2873 cetacean sightings, recorded between January 2004 and June 2009, was assigned to 10 × 10 km grid cells and linked to four ecogeographical variables (EGVs): water depth, seabed slope, sea surface temperature (SST) and relative frontal strength. Classification trees revealed that the habitat preferences (in terms of the habitats sampled) of most species were primarily determined by SST (for Bryde's whale, sperm whale, short-finned pilot whale and common dolphin) and water depth (for Risso's dolphin, bottlenose dolphin and Atlantic spotted dolphin). Seabed slope was the most important EGV describing the presence of the striped dolphin. A principal component analysis was used to compare the niches of the species with respect to the four EGVs. Nineteen species pairs (68%) differed significantly in median principal component (PC) score for the first PC axis, suggesting differences in their niche centres for that axis. Sixteen species pairs (57%) differed significantly in PC score variance suggesting differences in the niche widths along the first PC axis. Water depth and SST were the most important variables for the first PC axis. Together, these results suggest that cetacean species inhabiting the eastern tropical Atlantic exhibit interspecific variation in their habitat preferences, and so differ in the niches that they occupy. These differences are most likely related to variation in prey species and foraging strategy.

Keywords

Atlantic OceanAfricacetacean communityniche variationsea surface temperaturefrontswater depthseabed slope
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 92 , Issue 8: Marine Mammals , December 2012 , pp. 1735 - 1749
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, R.C. (2005) Observations of cetaceans in the Maldives, 1990–2002. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 7, 119–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azzellino, A., Gaspari, S., Airoldi, S. and Nani, B. (2008a) Habitat use and preferences of cetaceans along the continental slope and the adjacent pelagic waters in the western Ligurian Sea. Deep-Sea Research, Part I 55, 296–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azzellino, A., Gaspari, S.A., Airoldi, S. and Lanfredi, C. (2008b) Biological consequences of global warming: does sea surface temperature affect cetacean distribution in the western Ligurian Sea? Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 88, 1145–1152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Au, D.W.K. and Perryman, W.L. (1985) Dolphin habitats in the eastern tropical Pacific. Fishery Bulletin 83, 623–643.Google Scholar
Ballance, L.T. and Pitman, R.L. (1998) Cetaceans of the western tropical Indian Ocean: distribution, relative abundance, and comparisons with cetacean communities of two other tropical ecosystems. Marine Mammal Science 14, 429–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballance, L.T., Pitman, R.L. and Fiedler, P.C. (2006) Oceanographic influences on seabirds and cetaceans of the eastern tropical Pacific: a review. Progress in Oceanography 69, 360–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, M.F. (1997) The distribution of Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus) with respect to the physiography of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Marine Mammal Science 13, 614–638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumgartner, M.F., Mullin, K.D., May, L.N. and Leming, T.D. (2001) Cetacean habitats in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Fishery Bulletin 99, 219–239.Google Scholar
Bearzi, M. (2005) Dolphin sympatric ecology. Marine Biology Research 1, 165–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Best, P.B. (2001) Distribution and population separation of Bryde's whale Balaenoptera edeni off southern Africa. Marine Ecology Progress Series 220, 277–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bräger, S., Harraway, J.A. and Manly, B.F.J. (2003) Habitat selection in a coastal dolphin species (Cephalorhynchus hectroi). Marine Biology 143, 233–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breiman, L., Friedman, J.H., Olshen, R.A. and Stone, C.J. (1984) Classification and regression trees. New York: Chapman & Hall.Google Scholar
Cañadas, A., Sagarminaga, R. and García-Tiscar, S. (2002) Cetacean distribution related with depth and slope in the Mediterranean waters off southern Spain. Deep-Sea Research I 49, 2053–2073.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapham, P.J. and Mead, J.G. (1999) Megaptera novaeangliae. Mammalian Species 604, 1–9.Google Scholar
Clarke, M.R. (1996) Cephalopods as prey. III. Cetaceans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 351, 1053–1065.Google Scholar
Clua, E. and Grosvalet, F. (2001) Mixed-species feeding aggregation of dolphins, large tunas and seabirds in the Azores. Aquatic Living Resources 14, 11–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, R.W., Fargion, G.S., May, N., Leming, T.D., Baumgartner, M., Evans, W.E., Hansen, L.J. and Mullin, K.D. (1998) Physical habitat of cetaceans along the continental slope in the north-central and western Gulf of Mexico. Marine Mammal Science 14, 490–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, R.W., Ortega-Ortiz, J.G., Ribic, C.A., Evans, W.E., Biggs, D.C., Ressler, P.H., Cady, R.B., Leben, R.R., Mullin, K.D. and Würsig, B. (2002) Cetacean habitat in the northern oceanic Gulf of Mexico. Deep-Sea Research I 49, 121–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Boer, M.N. (2010) Cetacean distribution and relative abundance in offshore Gabonese waters. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 90, 1613–1621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doksæter, L., Olsen, E., Nøttestad, L. and Fernö, A. (2008) Distribution and feeding ecology of dolphins along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Iceland and the Azores. Deep-Sea Research II 55, 243–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, P.G.H. and Hammond, P.S. (2004) Monitoring cetaceans in European waters. Mammal Review 34, 131–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forney, K.A. (2000) Environmental models of cetacean abundance: reducing uncertainty in population trends. Conservation Biology 14, 1271–1286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gannier, A. (2009) Comparison of odontocete populations of the Marquesas and Society Islands (French Polynesia). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 89, 931–941.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregr, E.J. and Trites, A.W. (2001) Predictions of critical habitat for five whale species in the waters of coastal British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58, 1265–1285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, R.B. and Griffin, N.J. (2003) Distribution, habitat partitioning, and abundance of Atlantic spotted dolphin, bottlenose dolphins, and loggerhead sea turtles on the eastern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf. Gulf of Mexico Science 2003, 23–34.Google Scholar
Gross, A., Kiszka, J., Van Canneyt, O., Richard, P. and Ridoux, V. (2009) A preliminary study of habitat and resource partitioning among co-occurring tropical dolphins around Mayotte, southwest Indian Ocean. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 84, 367–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamazaki, T. (2002) Spatiotemporal prediction models of cetacean habitats in the mid-western north Atlantic Ocean (from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, U.S.A. to Nova Scotia, Canada). Marine Mammal Science 18, 920–939.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardman-Mountford, N.J., Richardson, A.J., Agenbag, J.J., Hagen, E., Nykjaer, L., Shillington, F.A. and Villacastin, C. (2003) Ocean climate of the South East Atlantic observed from satellite data and wind models. Progress in Oceanography 59, 181–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyning, J.E. and Perrin, W.F. (1994) Evidence for two species of common dolphin (genus Delphinus) from the eastern North Pacific. Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Contributions to Science 442, 1–35.Google Scholar
Hirzel, A.H., Hausser, J., Chessel, D. and Perrin, N. (2002) Ecological-niche factor analysis: how to compute habitat-suitability maps without absence data? Ecology 83, 2027–2036.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoelzel, A.R., Potter, C.W. and Best, P.B. (1998) Genetic differentiation between parapatric ‘nearshore’ and ‘offshore’ populations of the bottlenose dolphin. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 265, 1177–1183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hooker, S.K., Whitehead, H. and Gowns, S. (1999) Marine Protected Area design and the spatial and temporal distribution of cetaceans in a submarine canyon. Conservation Biology 13, 592–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hui, C.A. (1979) Undersea topography and distribution of dolphins of the genus Delphinus in the southern California Bight. Journal of Mammalogy 60, 521–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchinson, G.E. (1958) Concluding remarks. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology 22, 415–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaquet, N., Whitehead, H. and Lewis, M. (1996) Coherence between 19th century sperm whale distributions and satellite-derived pigments in the tropical Pacific. Marine Ecology Progress Series 145, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, T.A., Fertl, D., Bolaños-Jiménez, J. and Zerbini, A.N. (2009) Distribution of common dolphins (Delphinus spp.) in the western Atlantic Ocean: a critical re-examination. Marine Biology 156, 1109–1124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longhurst, A.R. (1962) A review of the oceanography of the Gulf of Guinea. Bulletin de l'Institut Français D'Afrique Noire 24, 633–663.Google Scholar
MacLeod, C.D. and Zuur, A.F. (2005) Habitat utilization by Blainville's beaked whales off Great Abaco, northern Bahamas, in relation to seabed topography. Marine Biology 147, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, C.D., Hauser, N. and Peckham, H. (2004) Diversity, relative density and structure of the cetacean community in summer months east of Great Abaco, Bahamas. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 84, 469–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, C.D., Santos, M.B., López, A. and Pierce, G.J. (2006) Relative prey size consumption in toothed whales: implications for prey selection and level of specialisation. Marine Ecology Progress Series 326, 295–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, C.D., Weir, C.R., Pierpoint, C. and Harland, E.J. (2007) The habitat preferences of marine mammals west of Scotland (UK). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 87, 157–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, C.D., Weir, C.R., Santos, M.B. and Dunn, T.E. (2008) Temperature-based summer habitat partitioning between white-beaked and common dolphins around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 88, 1193–1198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maze-Foley, K. and Mullin, K.D. (2006) Cetaceans of the oceanic northern Gulf of Mexico: distributions, group sizes and interspecific associations. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 8, 203–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, P. (2004) Multi-spectral front maps for automatic detection of ocean colour features from SeaWiFS. International Journal of Remote Sensing 25, 1437–1442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, P. (2009) Composite front maps for improved visibility of dynamic sea-surface features on cloudy SeaWiFS and AVHRR data. Journal of Marine Systems 78, 327–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreno, I.B., Zerbini, A.N., Danilewicz, D., de Oliveira Santos, M.C., Simões-Lopes, P.C., Lailson-Brito, J. Jr. and Azevedo, A.F. (2005) Distribution and habitat characteristics of dolphins of the genus Stenella (Cetacean: Delphinidae) in the southwest Atlantic Ocean. Marine Ecology Progress Series 300, 229–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullin, K.D. and Fulling, G.L. (2004). Abundance of cetaceans in the oceanic northern Gulf of Mexico, 1996–2001. Marine Mammal Science 20, 787–807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowacek, D.P., Thorne, L.H., Johnston, D.W. and Tyack, P.L. (2007) Responses of cetaceans to anthropogenic noise. Mammal Review, 37, 81–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oviedo, L. (2007) Dolphin sympatric ecology in a tropical fjord: habitat partitioning by bathymetry and topography as a strategy to coexist. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 87, 1327–1335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pauly, D., Trites, A.W., Capuli, E. and Christensen, V. (1998) Diet composition and trophic levels of marine mammals. ICES Journal of Marine Science 55, 467–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Picanço, C., Carvalho, I. and Brito, C. (2009) Occurrence and distribution of cetaceans in São Tomé and Príncipe tropical archipelago and their relation to environmental variables. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 89, 1071–1076.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Praca, E. and Gannier, A. (2008) Ecological niches of three teuthophageous odontocetes in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. Ocean Science 4, 49–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pusineri, C., Chancollon, O., Ringelstein, J. and Ridoux, V. (2008) Feeding niche segregation among the Northeast Atlantic community of oceanic top predators. Marine Ecology Progress Series 361, 21–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Redfern, J.V., Ferguson, M.C., Becker, E.A., Hyrenbach, K.D., Good, G., Barlow, J., Kaschner, K., Baumgartner, M., Forney, K.A., Ballance, L.T., Fauchald, P., Halpin, P., Hamazaki, T., Pershing, A.J., Qian, S.S., Read, A.J., Reilly, S.B., Torres, L. and Werner, F. (2006) Techniques for cetacean-habitat modelling. Marine Ecology Progress Series 310, 271–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reilly, S.B. (1990) Seasonal changes in distribution and habitat differences among dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific. Marine Ecology Progress Series 66, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reilly, S.B. and Fiedler, P.C. (1994) Interannual variability of dolphin habitats in the eastern tropical Pacific. I: Research vessel surveys, 1986–1990. Fishery Bulletin 92, 434–450.Google Scholar
Rice, D.W. (1989) Sperm whale Physeter macrocephalus Linnaeus, 1758. In Ridgway, S.H. and Harrison, R. (eds) Handbook of marine mammals, Volume 4: river dolphins and the larger toothed whales. London: Academic Press, pp. 177–233.Google Scholar
Richardson, W.J., Greene, C.R. Jr, Malme, C.I. and Thomson, D.H. (1995) Marine mammals and noise. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 576 pp.Google Scholar
Robertson, M.P., Caithness, N. and Villet, M.H. (2001) A PCA-based modelling technique for predicting environmental suitability for organisms from presence records. Diversity and Distributions 7, 15–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossi-Santos, M., Wedekin, L.L. and Sousa-Lima, R.S. (2006) Distribution and habitat use of small cetaceans off Abrolhos Bank, eastern Brazil. Latin American Journal of Aquatic Mammals 5, 23–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selzer, L.A. and Payne, P.M. (1988) The distribution of white-sided (Lagenorhynchus acutus) and common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) vs. environmental features of the continental shelf of the northeastern United States. Marine Mammal Science 4, 141–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R.C., Dustan, P., Au, D., Baker, K.S. and Dunlap, E.A. (1986) Distribution of cetaceans and sea-surface chlorophyll concentrations in the California Current. Marine Biology 91, 385–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torres, L.G., Read, A.J. and Halpin, P. (2008) Fine-scale habitat modelling of a top marine predator: do prey data improve predictive capacity? Ecological Applications 18, 1702–1717.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van Bennekom, A.J. and Berger, G.W. (1984) Hydrography and silica budget of the Angola Basin. Netherlands Journal of Sea Research 17, 149–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waring, G.T., Hamazaki, T., Sheehan, D., Wood, G. and Baker, S. (2001) Characterization of beaked whale (Ziphiidae) and sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) summer habitat in shelf-edge and deeper waters off the northeast U.S. Marine Mammal Science 17, 703–717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weimerskirch, H., Le Corre, M., Jaquemet, S. and Marsac, F. (2005) Foraging strategy of a tropical seabird, the red-footed booby, in a dynamic marine environment. Marine Ecology Progress Series 288, 251–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, C.R. (2007) Occurrence and distribution of cetaceans off northern Angola, 2004/05. Journal of Cetacean Research and Management 9, 225–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, C.R. (2008) Overt responses of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus), and Atlantic spotted dolphins (Stenella frontalis) to seismic exploration off Angola. Aquatic Mammals 34, 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, C.R. (2011) Distribution and seasonality of cetaceans in tropical waters between Angola and the Gulf of Guinea. African Journal of Marine Science 33, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weir, C.R. and Coles, P. (2007) Morphology of common dolphins (Delphinus spp.) photographed off Angola. Abstracts of the 17th Biennial Conference of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, San Diego, California, USA, Cape Town, South Africa, 29 November–3 December, 2007.Google Scholar
Yen, P.P.W., Sydeman, W.J. and Hyrenbach, K.D. (2004) Marine bird and cetacean associations with bathymetric habitats and shallow-water topographies: implications for trophic transfer and conservation. Journal of Marine Systems 50, 79–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar