Meeting Abstract
P3.109 Sunday, Jan. 6 Investigation of growth in a coastal apex predator, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) MALLETTE, S/D*; PABST, D/A; MCLELLAN, W/A; BARCO, S/G; University of North Carolina Wilmington; Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center sarahmallette@yahoo.com
The bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) is a long-lived apex predator that is considered a sentinel of coastal ecosystem health (Reddy et al. 2001; Wells et al. 2004). The goal of this study is to describe patterns of growth of Tursiops utilizing two complimentary methods, ontogenetic allometry and body composition. Ontogenetic allometry describes the rate of growth of a given body component, whereas the body composition technique offers a snapshot of how developmental rates are manifested in the distribution of body mass over time (McLellan et al. 2002). The dataset consists of 175 stranded individuals and specimens incidentally killed in fishing operations, collected along the coasts of NC and VA, from 1990 to the present. All specimens have undergone a systematic mass dissection protocol, which separates of the body into discrete anatomical components, including: integument and blubber, functional muscle groups, viscera, and skeleton. To determine how the body conditions of the specimens in this sample compare to those of wild, free swimming Tursiops, a body mass index, (total body mass/total body length2 * 1000) (Schwacke et al. 2011) will be used to compare the stranded sample to analogous data collected from wild individuals during health assessments in Beaufort, NC and Sarasota Bay, FL. This study will contribute a comprehensive analysis of growth in Tursiops and provide a quantitative baseline reference for the distribution of body mass to its components in a sentinel species of ecosystem health.
