Stranded dolphin stomach contents represent the free-ranging population's diet

Diet is a fundamental aspect of animal ecology. Cetacean prey species are generally identified by examining stomach contents of stranded individuals. Critical uncertainty in these studies is whether samples from stranded animals are representative of the diet of free-ranging animals. Over two summer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biology letters (2005) 2013-06, Vol.9 (3), p.20121036-20121036
Main Authors: Dunshea, Glenn, Barros, Nélio B., Berens McCabe, Elizabeth J., Gales, Nicholas J., Hindell, Mark A., Jarman, Simon N., Wells, Randall S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Cetacea
Diet
DNA-based
Dolphins
Foraging
Gastrointestinal Contents
Marine
Marine Biology
PCR
Predatory Behavior
Sarasota
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Summary:Diet is a fundamental aspect of animal ecology. Cetacean prey species are generally identified by examining stomach contents of stranded individuals. Critical uncertainty in these studies is whether samples from stranded animals are representative of the diet of free-ranging animals. Over two summers, we collected faecal and gastric samples from healthy free-ranging individuals of an extensively studied bottlenose dolphin population. These samples were analysed by molecular prey detection and these data compared with stomach contents data derived from stranded dolphins from the same population collected over 22 years. There was a remarkable consistency in the prey species composition and relative amounts between the two datasets. The conclusions of past stomach contents studies regarding dolphin habitat associations, prey selection and proposed foraging mechanisms are supported by molecular data from live animals and the combined dataset. This is the first explicit test of the validity of stomach contents analysis for accurate population-scale diet determination of an inshore cetacean.
ISSN:1744-9561
1744-957X
DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2012.1036