1 / 15

Organic Contaminants Track Bottlenose Dolphin Habitat Utilization in the Florida Panhandle

Organic Contaminants Track Bottlenose Dolphin Habitat Utilization in the Florida Panhandle. RM Wilson. UMEs Lack of Baseline Data. Why are we interested in these animals?. Community as an ecological construct.

teague
Download Presentation

Organic Contaminants Track Bottlenose Dolphin Habitat Utilization in the Florida Panhandle

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Organic Contaminants Track Bottlenose Dolphin Habitat Utilization in the Florida Panhandle RM Wilson

  2. UMEs Lack of Baseline Data Why are we interested in these animals?

  3. Community as an ecological construct • Bottlenose dolphins tend to aggregate into subgroups that “share…ranges, exhibit similar genetic profiles, and interact with each other to a much greater extent than with dolphins in adjacent waters” • NMFS: community is the “functioning unit” of their respective ecosystem.

  4. Methods to Track Habitat Utilization • Photo-identification • Radio tracking • Chemical tracers

  5. Cast of Characters • PCBs • DDTs • BDEs • chlordanes

  6. Study Area ?

  7. Sampling

  8. Extraction and Analysis • ASE – collagen removal • GPC – lipid removal • SPE – final clean-up • GC-MS: • EI : PCBs, DDTs, BDEs • NCI: chlordanes

  9. Results • 55 POC congeners were quantified • 34 PCB congeners • 6 DDT congeners • 6 BDE congeners • 5 chlordane congeners; dieldrin; HCB; mirex

  10. Contaminant Classes

  11. Comparison of the 3 proposed communities

  12. Conclusions • Bottlenose dolphins of the region sampled form at least 3 three distinct communities • Eastern dolphins are differentiated by sighting data and concentration • St Joe Bay and St Andrews Bay dolphins are differentiated by congener type

  13. Acknowledgements • Doug Nowacek and Jeff Chanton • John Kucklick • National Institute of Standards and Technology Charleston, SC • P. Becker, J. Keller, S. Van der Pol, J. Yordy, A. Guichard, D. Ellisor • Brian Balmer • University of North Carolina-Wilmington • T. Rowles • National Marine Fisheries Service

More Related