Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T01:14:39.010Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Passive acoustic monitoring of bottlenose dolphin and harbour porpoise, in Cardigan Bay, Wales, with implications for habitat use and partitioning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2010

Malene Simon ,
Hanna Nuuttila ,
Mercedes M. Reyes-Zamudio ,
Fernando Ugarte ,
Ursula Verfub  and
Peter G.H. Evans
Malene Simon*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus, C.F. Møllers Alle, Building 1131, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Department of Birds and Mammals, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, PO Box 570, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland
Hanna Nuuttila
Affiliation:
School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University, Menai Bridge, Anglesey, LL 59 SAB, UK
Mercedes M. Reyes-Zamudio
Affiliation:
C/Ernesto Castro Fariña no. 8, Tacoronte, Tenerife, Spain
Fernando Ugarte
Affiliation:
Department of Birds and Mammals, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, PO Box 570, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland
Ursula Verfub
Affiliation:
German Oceanographic Museum, Katharinenberg 14-20, D-18439 Stralsund, Germany
Peter G.H. Evans
Affiliation:
Sea Watch Foundation, 11 Jersey Road, Oxford 0X4 4RT, UK
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: M. Simon, Department of Birds and Mammals, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, PO Box 570, 3900 Nuuk, Greenland email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Knowledge about harbour porpoise and bottlenose dolphin occurrence in Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC), Wales, is limited to daylight hours during summer, when conditions are suitable for traditional visual surveys. T-PODs are autonomous instruments programmed to log time-cues of species-specific echolocation signals for long periods of time. Here we investigated bottlenose dolphin and harbour porpoise habitat use and partitioning by deploying ten calibrated T-PODs in Cardigan Bay SAC for one year. The T-PODs detected both species all year round with a peak of detections in April–October for dolphins and in October–March for porpoise, revealing a previously unknown importance of the place to harbour porpoise during winter. Though the two species are sympatric, simultaneous detections of both species were rare and indication of temporal habitat partitioning between the two species in some parts of the SAC was observed. The one location where simultaneous detections were not as rare was close to the stretch of shoreline where stranding of porpoises killed by dolphins are most common, suggesting that the observed spatiotemporal overlap leads to inter-specific interactions, in some cases fatal for the porpoise.

Keywords

habitat partitioningPhocoena phocoenaT-PODTursiops truncatusecholocation
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 90 , Special Issue 8: Marine Mammals , December 2010 , pp. 1539 - 1545
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2010

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

Anonymous. (2007) Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:1992L0043:20070101:EN:PDF). Accessed April 2009.Google Scholar
Au, W.W.L. (1993) The sonar of dolphins. 1st edition. Berlin, Heidelberg, and New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Au, W.W.L., Moore, P.W.B. and Pawlowski, D. (1986) Echolocation transmitting beam of the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 80, 688–691.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Au, W.W.L., Kastelein, R.A., Rippe, T. and Schooneman, M.N. (1999) Transmission beam pattern and echolocation signals of a harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 106, 3699–3705.Google Scholar
Barnard, C., Gilbert, F. and McGregor, P. (2001) Asking questions in biology: key skills for practical assessments and project work, 2nd edition. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education, pp. 74–75.Google Scholar
Bristow, T., Glanville, N. and Hopkins, J. (2001) Shore-based monitoring of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) by trained volunteers in Cardigan Bay, Wales. Aquatic Mammals 27, 115–120.Google Scholar
Carstensen, J., Henriksen, O.D. and Teilmann, J. (2006) Impacts on harbour porpoises from offshore wind farm construction: acoustic monitoring of echolocation activity using porpoise detectors (T-PODs). Marine Ecololgy Progress Series 321, 295–308.Google Scholar
Dähne, M., Verfuß, U.K., Diederics, A., Meding, A. and Benke, H. (2006) T-Pod test calibration and field calibration. In Leeney, R.H. and Tregenza, N.J.C. (eds) Static acoustic monitoring of cetaceans, Proceedings of workshop held at 26th Annual Conference of European Cetacean Society, Gdynia, Poland, 2 April 2006. European Cetacean Society Special issue No. 46. Kiel, Germany, pp. 33–35.Google Scholar
Evans, P.G.H., Anderwald, P. and Baines, M.E. (2003) UK Cetacean Status Review. Oxford: English Nature, Countryside Council for Wales and Sea Watch Foundation, 160 pp.Google Scholar
Jepson, P.D. and Baker, J.R. (1998) Bottlenosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) as a possible cause of acute traumatic injuries in porpoises (Phocoena phocoena). Veterinary Record 143, 614–615.Google Scholar
Koschinski, S., Culik, B.M., Henriksen, O.D., Tregenza, N., Ellis, G., Jansen, C. and Kathe, G. (2003) Behavioural reactions of free-ranging porpoises and seals to the noise of a simulated 2 MW windpower generator. Marine Ecology Progress Series 265, 263–273.Google Scholar
Kyhn, L.A., Tougaard, J., Wahlberg, M., Teilmann, J., Jørgensen, P.B. and Beck, N.I. (2008) Harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) static acoustic monitoring: laboratory detection thresholds of T-PODs are reflected in field sensitivity. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 88, 1085–1091.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leeney, R.H. and Tregenza, N.J.C. (eds.) (2006) Static acoustic monitoring of cetaceans. Proceedings of workshop held at 26th Annual Conference of European Cetacean Society, Gdynia, Poland, 2 April 2006. European Cetacean Society Special issue No. 46, Kiel, Germany.Google Scholar
Leeney, R.H., Berrow, S., McGrath, D., O'Brien, J., Cosgrove, R. and Godley, B.J. (2007) Effects of pingers on the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 8, 129–133.Google Scholar
Mellinger, D.K., Stafford, K.M., Moore, S.E., Dziak, R.P. and Matsumoto, H. (2007) An overview of fixed passive acoustic observation methods for cetaceans. Oceanography 20, 36–45.Google Scholar
Patterson, I., Reid, R., Wilson, B., Grellier, K., Ross, H. and Thompson, P. (1998) Evidence for infanticide in bottlenose dolphins: an explanation for violent interactions with harbour porpoises? Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B 265, 1167–1170.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. (2003) Marine Mammal & Marine Turtle Strandings (Welsh Coast). Annual Report 2002. Marine Environmental Monitoring, Ceredigion, West Wales, pp. 1–20.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. (2005) Marine Mammal & Marine Turtle Strandings (Welsh Coast). Annual Report 2004. Marine Environmental Monitoring, Ceredigion, West Wales.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. (2006) Marine Mammal & Marine Turtle Strandings (Welsh Coast). Annual Report 2005. Marine Environmental Monitoring, Ceredigion, West Wales, pp. 1–21.Google Scholar
Penrose, R. (2007) Marine Mammal & Marine Turtle Strandings (Welsh Coast). Annual Report 2006. Marine Environmental Monitoring, Ceredigion, West Wales, pp. 1–26.Google Scholar
Philpott, E., Englund, A., Ingram, S. and Rogan, E. (2007) Using T-PODs to investigate the echolocation of coastal bottlenose dolphins. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 87, 11–17.Google Scholar
Reid, J.B., Evans, P.G.H. and Northridge, S.P. (2003) Atlas of cetacean distribution in north-west European waters. Peterborough: Joint Nature Conservation Committee, 76 pp.Google Scholar
Ross, H.M. and Wilson, B. (1996) Violent interactions between bottlenose dolphins and harbour porpoises. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London B 263, 283–286.Google Scholar
Santos, M.B., Pierce, G.J., Reid, R.J., Patterson, I., Ross, H.M. and Mente, E. (2001) Stomach contents of bottlenose dolphins in Scottish waters. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 81, 873–878.Google Scholar
Santos, M.B. and Pierce, G.J. (2003) The diet of harbour porpoise in the Northeast Atlantic. Oceanography and Marine Biology: an Annual Review 41, 355–390.Google Scholar
Senior, B. (2006) Using T-PODs in areas with dolphins and porpoises. In Leeney, R.H. and Tregenza, N.J.C. (eds) Static acoustic monitoring of cetaceans. Proceedings of workshop held at 25th Annual Conference of European Cetacean Society, Gdynia, Poland, 2 April 2006. European Cetacean Society Special issue No. 46, Kiel, Germany, pp. 43–4.Google Scholar
Teilmann, J., Henriksen, O.D., Carstensen, J. and Skov, H. (2002) Monitoring effects of offshore windfarms on harbour porpoises using PODs (porpoise detectors). Technical Report for the Ministry of the Environment, Denmark.Google Scholar
Tougaard, J. (2008) Radial distance sapling with passive acoustics: the prospect of estimating absolute densities of cetaceans from static acoustic datalogger data. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123, 3100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ugarte, F. and Evans, P.G.H. (2006) Monitoring of marine mammals in the Cardigan Bay SAC: surveys from May 2003 to April 2005, and recommendations for future work. Marine Monitoring Report, No 23, Countryside Council for Wales, Bangor, 31 pp.Google Scholar
Verfuß, U.K., Miller, L.A. and Schnitzler, H.U. (2005) Spatial orientation in echolocating harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena). Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 3385–3394.Google Scholar
Verfuß, U.K., Honnef, C.G., Meding, A., Dahne, M., Mundry, R. and Benke, H. (2007) Geographical and seasonal variation of harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) presence in the German Baltic Sea revealed by passive acoustic monitoring. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 8, 165–176.Google Scholar
Verfuß, U.K., Honnef, C.G., Meding, A., Dähne, M., Adler, S., Kilian, A. and Benke, H. (2008) The history of the German Baltic Sea harbour porpoise acoustic monitoring at the German Oceanographic Museum. In Wollny-Goerke, K. and Eskildsen, K. (eds) Marine mammals and seabirds in front of offshore wind energy. MINOS—Marine warm-blooded animals in North and Baltic Seas. Wiesbaden: Teubner, pp. 41–56.Google Scholar
Verfuß, U.K., Miller, L.A., Pilz, P.K.D. and Schnitzler, H.U. (2009) Echolocation by two foraging harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena). Journal of Experimental Biology 212, 823–834.Google Scholar
Villadsgaard, A., Wahlberg, M. and Tougaard, J. (2006) Echolocation signals of wild harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena. Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 56–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar