Abstract
Assigning stranded bottlenose dolphins to source stocks using stable isotope ratios following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Highlights
Information collected from stranded marine mammals can serve as a tool for monitoring free-ranging populations (Peltier et al 2012)
The goal of the current study was to test whether stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur could be used to assign dolphins stranded after and in areas most affected by the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill to estuarine or coastal source habitats, as a proxy for stocks
Isotopic values for all 3 elements were sequentially greater from Estuarine to Barrier Island (BI) to coastal waters offshore of BI (Coastal) and from West to East, with significant positive correlations (SAS Proc Corr, Spearman correlation coefficients, all p < 0.001); the relative increase from Estuarine to BI to Coastal was greater in West than East (Fig. S1 in the Supplement)
Summary
Information collected from stranded marine mammals can serve as a tool for monitoring free-ranging populations (Peltier et al 2012). Samples from stranded marine mammals can be used to obtain data for estimating demographic parameters of species or populations for which data are otherwise difficult to obtain (Hohn et al 1996, Lockyer & Kinze 2003, Mattson et al 2006, Schwacke et al 2017, this Theme Section). In these ways, robust stranding programs have substantially contributed to our knowledge of marine mammal populations. While we do not deal with this question here, a second major issue in using strandings to reflect free-ranging populations, and the motivation for this paper, is that the source population for stranded marine mammals is often unknown
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