G’day Marmamers, My co-authors and I are pleased to have had the following paper published in Scientific Reports: “Preliminary estimates of the abundance and fidelity of dolphins associating with a demersal trawl fishery”. The authors are Allen SJ, Pollock KH, Bouchet PJ, Kobryn HT, McElligott DB, Nicholson KE, Smith JN and Loneragan NR, and the abstract reads as follows:
The incidental capture of wildlife in fishing gear presents a global conservation challenge. As a baseline to inform assessments of the impact of bycatch on bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) interacting with an Australian trawl fishery, we conducted an aerial survey to estimate dolphin abundance across the fishery. Concurrently, we carried out boat-based dolphin photo-identification to assess short-term fidelity to foraging around trawlers, and used photographic and genetic data to infer longer-term fidelity to the fishery. We estimated abundance at ≈ 2,300 dolphins (95% CI = 1,247�C4,214) over the ≈ 25,880-km2 fishery. Mark-recapture estimates yielded 226 (SE = 38.5) dolphins associating with one trawler and some individuals photographed up to seven times over 12 capture periods. Moreover, photographic and genetic re-sampling over three years confirmed that some individuals show long-term fidelity to trawler-associated foraging. Our study presents the first abundance estimate for any Australian pelagic dolphin community and documents individuals associating with trawlers over days, months and years. Without trend data or correction factors for dolphin availability, the impact of bycatch on this dolphin population’s conservation status remains unknown. These results should be taken into account by management agencies assessing the impact of fisheries-related mortality on this protected species. This dolphin-fishery interaction research follows on from: Allen et al. 2014. Patterns of dolphin bycatch in a North-Western Australian trawl fishery. PLoS ONE 9: e93178, and Allen et al. 2016. Genetic isolation between coastal and offshore, fishery-impacted bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops spp.) populations. Molecular Ecology 25: 2735-2753. doi: 10.1111/mec.13622. The full citation is: Allen et al. 2017. Preliminary estimates of the abundance and fidelity of dolphins in a demersal trawl fishery. Scientific Reports 7: 4995. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-05189-0 Go ahead and treat yourself to your very own PDF at http://rdcu.be/t5Y2<http://em.rdcu.be/wf/click?upn=KP7O1RED-2BlD0F9LDqGVeSP5tQHNT2k-2BDz-2FiwQvChBAw-3D_AIMRe0EZFYpFUxp-2Fpzz7EkJEG96KPe7gxdq6HONtBoNWY-2F46ZM92LpPR4jlDWbwxAEbaGJIGiOPheJJ2pXFnMAtqZAage1rd-2Fc4Vjtg8HPfQjTipHAThqbH8Wtgo0MJ4uoGd-2Fb2AlvN-2BBLahzFj5BE9TIaiO59k7nz-2FWRNEWrjOXMOTJZszzoejcxcBH64spZICqdHmVj04VuyPpvZii4LMt96AAHBZVzZxvPfeGxSk-3D> All the best and hope to cross paths with many in Halifax. Kind regards, Simon ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Simon Allen, PhD School of Biological Sciences | Oceans Institute University of Western Australia Crawley WA 6009 Mob: (61-0) 416 083 653 Email: simon.al...@uwa.edu.au<applewebdata://006C211F-965E-4B11-879F-544A520C4A7B/s.al...@murdoch.edu.au> Web1: http://www.sharkbaydolphins.org<http://www.sharkbaydolphins.org/> Web2: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon_Allen2 [cid:FF9965AC-0085-409C-B926-5F807662A1EB] Recent papers: Alliance behaviour and mating access in an open social network of bottlenose dolphins (2017): http://www.nature.com/articles/srep46354 Abundance of tropical inshore dolphins in the Kimberley (2016): http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmars.2016.00004 Bycatch and population structure of bottlenose dolphins (2016): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.13622/full Cooperation or ‘tug-of-war’ between dolphins (2016): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-016-1026-x North West Cape humpback dolphin demographics (2017): http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/esr/v32/p71-88
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