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Individual movements between local coastal populations of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in the northern and eastern Black Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2016

Elena Gladilina ,
Olga Shpak ,
Valentin Serbin ,
Anna Kryukova ,
Dmitry Glazov  and
Pavel Gol'din
Elena Gladilina
Affiliation:
Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Bogdan Khmelnytskyi Street, Kiev, 01601, Ukraine
Olga Shpak
Affiliation:
A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences, 33 Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, 119071, Russia Marine Mammal Council, 36 Nakhimovsky Avenue, Moscow, 117218, Russia
Valentin Serbin
Affiliation:
Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Birds, 65 Glushkova Avenue, Kiev, 01103, Ukraine
Anna Kryukova
Affiliation:
11/2 Akademika Glushko Avenue, Odessa, 65113, Ukraine
Dmitry Glazov
Affiliation:
A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences, 33 Leninsky Avenue, Moscow, 119071, Russia Marine Mammal Council, 36 Nakhimovsky Avenue, Moscow, 117218, Russia
Pavel Gol'din*
Affiliation:
Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Bogdan Khmelnytskyi Street, Kiev, 01601, Ukraine
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: P. Gol'din, Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 15 Bogdan Khmelnytskyi Street, Kiev, 01601, Ukraine email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Black Sea subspecies of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus ponticus) is threatened and has a small range. Its population structure is little known: it possibly includes a few local coastal populations. We assessed connectivity between coastal groupings in six localities along 800 km of the coastline based on records of photo-identified animals between 2004 and 2014. Abundance of these groupings, as estimated, ranged between 76 and 174 individually distinctive dolphins. In total, there were 350 identified individuals, of which 91 (26%) were resighted within the same areas. However, only three cases of individual movements between local coastal populations were recorded at the distances between 135 and 325 km. Therefore, despite the absence of physical barriers, the coastal Black Sea population is fragmented into numerous resident or locally migrating groupings with site fidelity. These local populations are loosely connected to each other with rare movements between them. This fragmentation can be a factor contributing to short-term fluctuations in abundance of Black Sea bottlenose dolphins and their decline in some localities, despite the potentially high population growth rate.

Keywords

bottlenose dolphinpopulation structuremark-recapture studyconnectivityfragmented range
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 98 , Issue 2 , March 2018 , pp. 223 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2016 

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