Dunshea_2013_biollet.pdf (456.19 kB)
Stranded dolphin stomach contents represent the free-ranging population's diet
journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 22:25 authored by Dunshea, GJ, Barros, NB, Berens McCabe, EJ, Gales, N, Mark HindellMark Hindell, Jarman, S, Wells, RSDiet is a fundamental aspect of animal ecology. Cetacean prey species are generally identified by examining stomach contents of stranded individuals. Critical uncertainty in these studies is whether samples from stranded animals are representative of the diet of free-ranging animals. Over two summers, we collected faecal and gastric samples from healthy free-ranging individuals of an extensively studied bottlenose dolphin population. These samples were analysed by molecular prey detection and these data compared with stomach contents data derived from stranded dolphins from the same population collected over 22 years. There was a remarkable consistency in the prey species composition and relative amounts between the two datasets. The conclusions of past stomach contents studies regarding dolphin habitat associations, prey selection and proposed foraging mechanisms are supported bymolecular data fromlive animals and the combined dataset. This is the first explicit test of the validity of stomach contents analysis for accurate population-scale diet determination of an inshore cetacean.
History
Publication title
Biology LettersVolume
9Article number
20121036Number
20121036Pagination
1-5ISSN
1744-9561Department/School
Institute for Marine and Antarctic StudiesPublisher
Royal SocietyPlace of publication
LondonRights statement
Copyright 2013 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.Repository Status
- Open