Abstract
A toninha (Pontoporia blainvillei) é considerada a espécie de golfinho mais ameaçada da costa do Brasil. As populações de toninha que ocorrem no litoral norte do estado do Espírito Santo constituem populações isoladas, separadas por um hiato geográfico das demais populações. Da mesma forma, não há informações sobre hábitos alimentares de golfinhos franciscanos na área de estudo. O objetivo desta pesquisa é descrever a dieta da toninha na costa norte do Espírito Santo. Foram analisados 18 conteúdos estomacais de carcaças encalhadas no período de janeiro/2012 a março/2015. Foram contabilizados os itens da dieta identificados e calculadas a frequência de ocorrência e a abundância relativa das presas. São apresentados novos registros de presas para a espécie. A presa mais comum encontrada na dieta da toninha foi Isopisthus parvipinnins. Assim como em outras localidades, a família Sciaenidae foi o grupo mais importante na dieta de Pontoporia blainvillei no Espírito Santo, seguida por presas pelágicas da ordem Clupeiformes.
Highlights
Pontoporia blainvillei (Gervais & D’Orbigny, 1844) is popularly known as “toninha” in Brazil, or as La Plata River dolphin and “Franciscana” in Uruguay and Argentina
We ranked all prey items consumed by the dolphins and we described all predator-prey relationships to give insights about the feeding ecology of the species’
We examined the stomach content of 18 franciscana dolphins stranded between January 2012 and March
Summary
Pontoporia blainvillei (Gervais & D’Orbigny, 1844) is popularly known as “toninha” in Brazil, or as La Plata River dolphin and “Franciscana” in Uruguay and Argentina. Franciscana dolphin is the sole extant species in Pontoporiidae family. The species is distributed from Itaunas (18°25’S), on the Northern coast of Espírito Santo State, Brazil (SICILIANO, 1994), to the Northern coast of Golfo San Matías (42°35’S), Argentina (CRESPO et al, 1998). This dolphin species inhabits preferentially coastal and estuarine areas up to 50 m depth, even though the species is more abundant in shallow waters over soft-bottoms at 30 m depth (PINEDO et al, 1989; DI BENEDITTO; RAMOS, 2001; DANILEWICZ et al, 2009). Since 2012, the franciscana dolphin has been categorized as “Vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ZERBINI et al, 2017). The species is considered the most threatened dolphin in Brazil (MMA, ICMBio – Portaria 444/2014)
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