Kinship and reproductive condition correlate with affiliation patterns in female southern Australian bottlenose dolphins.

Social relationships in female mammals are usually determined by an interplay among genetic, endogenous, social and ecological factors that ultimately affect their lifetime reproductive success. However, few studies have attempted to control for, and integrate these factors, hampering our understanding of drivers underlying female sociality. Here, we used generalized affiliation indices, combined with social networks, reproductive condition, and genetic data to investigate drivers of associations in female southern Australian bottlenose dolphins.

Modelling Dolphin Distribution to Inform Future Spatial Conservation Decisions in a Marine Protected Area.

As marine predators experience increasing anthropogenic pressures, there is an urgent need to understand their distribution and their drivers to inform spatial conservation planning. We used an ensemble modelling approach to investigate the spatio-temporal distribution of southern Australian bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops cf. australis) in relation to a variety of ecogeographical and anthropogenic variables in Coffin Bay, Thorny Passage Marine Park, South Australia.

High site fidelity and restricted ranging patterns in southern Australian bottlenose dolphins.

Information on site fidelity and ranging patterns of wild animals is critical to understand how they use their environment and guide conservation and management strategies. Delphinids show a wide variety of site fidelity and ranging patterns. Between September 2013 and October 2015, we used boat-based surveys, photographic identification, biopsy sampling, clustering analysis, and geographic information systems to determine the site-fidelity patterns and representative ranges of southern Australian bottlenose dolphins ( cf.