Effects of intense storm events on dolphin occurrence and foraging behavior.

ABSTRACT: As storms become increasingly intense and frequent due to climate change, we must better understand how they alter environmental conditions and impact species. However, storms are ephemeral and provide logistical challenges that prevent visual surveys commonly used to understand marine mammal ecology. Thus, relatively little is known about top predators' responses to such environmental disturbances. In this study, we utilized passive acoustic monitoring to characterize the response of bottlenose dolphins to intense storms offshore Maryland, USA between 2015 and 2017. During and following four autumnal storms, dolphins were detected less frequently and for shorter periods of time. However, dolphins spent a significantly higher percentage of their encounters feeding after the storm than they

SUBMITTER: Fandel AD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7648104 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature