Dear MARMAM colleagues, We are pleased to announce that the following paper has been published online:
Pirotta E, Laesser BE, Hardaker A, Riddoch N, Marcoux M, Lusseau D. 2013. Dredging displaces bottlenose dolphins from an urbanised foraging patch. Marine Pollution Bulletin. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.06.020 ABSTRACT: The exponential growth of the human population and its increasing industrial development often involve large scale modifications of the environment. In the marine context, coastal urbanisation and harbour expansion to accommodate the rising levels of shipping and offshore energy exploitation require dredging to modify the shoreline and sea floor. While the consequences of dredging on invertebrates and fish are relatively well documented, no study has robustly tested the effects on large marine vertebrates. We monitored the attendance of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) to a recently established urbanised foraging patch, Aberdeen harbour (Scotland), and modelled the effect of dredging operations on site usage. We found that higher intensities of dredging caused the dolphins to spend less time in the harbour, despite high baseline levels of disturbance and the importance of the area as a foraging patch. KEY WORDS: Construction; Displacement; Dredging; Harbour; Scotland; Tursiops truncatus A PDF copy of the work can be downloaded from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X13003123 Please do not hesitate to contact me for any question regarding our work. Best Regards, Enrico Pirotta
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