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Availability: Creative Commons License This dataset is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Description
We examined bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus community structure and abundance in the northeast Gulf of Mexico coastal waters stretching from St. Vincent Sound to Alligator Harbor, Florida, USA. more

Photographic-identification surveys were conducted between May 2004 and October 2006 to gain an understanding of dolphin distribution in this region. Dolphins were distributed year-round throughout the region; however, individual sighting records indicate that 2 parapatric dolphin communities exist. We conducted mark-recapture surveys using photographic-identification techniques to estimate the abundance of dolphins inhabiting the 2 areas these communities reside in: St. Vincent Sound/Apalachicola Bay, western; and St. George Sound/Alligator Harbor, eastern. Sighting records of individual dolphins from 2004 to 2008 support the existence of 2 communities in these areas; only 3.5% of distinctive dolphins photographed were seen in both western and eastern areas. The 2 communities differ in their structure: the eastern area supports a more transient population with 45.7% of distinctive dolphins photo graphed only once compared with 28.3% in the west. Independent estimates of abundance (N, 95% CI = [low, high]) were calculated using the Chapman modification of the Lincoln-Petersen method for June 2007 and for January and February 2008 for the eastern area (242 [141−343], 395 [273−516]) and for the western survey area (197 [130−264], 111 [71−150]), respectively. Our results serve as a baseline that can be used by the US National Marine Fisheries Service to manage bottlenose dolphins in this region.
[2015-03-24] A few records had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with a blank representing species presence only.

Scope
Themes:
Biology > Mammals
Keywords:
Marine/Coastal, ASW, Mexico Gulf, ASW, USA, Florida, Apalachicola Bay, Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821)

Geographical coverage
ASW, Mexico Gulf [Marine Regions]
ASW, USA, Florida, Apalachicola Bay [Marine Regions]

Temporal coverage
27 April 2004 - 4 February 2008

Taxonomic coverage
Tursiops truncatus (Montagu, 1821) [WoRMS]

Parameter
Occurrence of biota

Contributors
Duke University; Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences; Marine Laboratory, moredata creator

Related datasets
Published in:
OBIS-SEAMAP: Spatial Ecological Analysis of Megavertebrate Populations, more

Dataset status: Completed
Data type: Data
Data origin: Research: field survey
Metadatarecord created: 2015-04-22
Information last updated: 2015-04-23
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