The extent of increasing anthropogenic impacts on large marine vertebrates partly depends on the animals' movement patterns. Effective conservation requires identification of the key drivers of movement including intrinsic properties and extrinsic constraints associated with the dynamic nature of the environments the animals inhabit. However, the relative importance of intrinsic versus extrinsic factors remains elusive. We analyze a global dataset of ∼2.8 million locations from >2,600 tracked individuals across 50 marine vertebrates evolutionarily separated by millions of years and using different locomotion modes (fly, swim, walk/paddle). Strikingly, movement patterns show a remarkable convergence, being strongly conserved across species and independent of body length and mass, despite these traits ranging over 10 orders of magnitude among the species studied. This represents a fundamental difference between marine and terrestrial vertebrates not previously identified, likely linked to the reduced costs of locomotion in water. Movement patterns were primarily explained by the interaction between species-specific traits and the habitat(s) they move through, resulting in complex movement patterns when moving close to coasts compared with more predictable patterns when moving in open oceans. This distinct difference may be associated with greater complexity within coastal microhabitats, highlighting a critical role of preferred habitat in shaping marine vertebrate global movements. Efforts to develop understanding of the characteristics of vertebrate movement should consider the habitat(s) through which they move to identify how movement patterns will alter with forecasted severe ocean changes, such as reduced Arctic sea ice cover, sea level rise, and declining oxygen content.
An unusual number of near term and neonatal bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) mortalities occurred in the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) in 2011, during the first calving season after two well documented environmental perturbations; sustained cold weather in 2010 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS). Preceding the stranding event, large volumes of cold freshwater entered the nGOM due to unusually large snowmelt on the adjacent watershed, providing a third potential stressor. We consider the possibility that this extreme cold and freshwater event contributed to the pattern of perinatal dolphin strandings along the nGOM coast. During the 4-month period starting January 2011, 186 bottlenose dolphins, including 46% perinatal calves (nearly double the percentage for the same time period from 2003–2010) washed ashore from Louisiana to western Florida. Comparison of the frequency distribution of strandings to flow rates and water temperature at a monitoring buoy outside Mobile Bay, Alabama (the 4th largest freshwater drainage in the U.S.) and along the nGOM coast showed that dolphin strandings peaked in Julian weeks 5, 8, and 12 (February and March), following water temperature minima by 2–3 weeks. If dolphin condition was already poor due to depleted food resources, bacterial infection, or other factors, it is plausible that the spring freshet contributed to the timing and location of the unique stranding event in early 2011. These data provide strong observational evidence to assess links between the timing of the DWHOS, other local environmental stressors, and mortality of a top local predator. Targeted analyses of tissues from stranded dolphins will be essential to define a cause of death, and our findings highlight the importance of considering environmental data along with biological samples to interpret stranding patterns during and after an unusual mortality event.
Traditional research methods are often limited in their ability to capture broad spatial and temporal changes in species distribution that affect global patterns of biodiversity. To provide range-wide demographic data needed to quantify and evaluate changes in habitat use and support ongoing recovery efforts for the endangered West Indian manatee Trichechus manatus, we analyzed data from a formal manatee sighting network that uses citizen-sourced data for the understudied north-central Gulf of Mexico region. Although historically considered to be outside manatees' typical US range, more than 1700 opportunistic, publicly reported manatee sightings and 23 mortalities have been documented in Alabama and Mississippi since the early 1900s. Live manatee sightings have occurred primarily during warmer months in rivers and subembayments. Manatee mortalities have significantly increased since the mid-1980s and have most often been attributed to cold stress, with 2 known mortalities due to vessel strikes in recent years. Sightings of individual manatees were most common, but group sizes of up to 17 were reported, typically in late summer. Decadal-scale trends in opportunistic sighting records demonstrate persistent spatial and temporal patterns of manatee occurrence in the north-central Gulf of Mexico and suggest greater use and importance of the region as seasonal manatee habitat than previously documented. If applied appropriately, citizen-sourced data have the potential to enhance targeted research efforts, significantly contribute to ecological datasets for a number of species, and provide a useful tool to enhance conservation and management.
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