•1 min read•from Frontiers in Marine Science | New and Recent Articles
Common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) whistles and clicks across foraging contexts
Our take
Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) utilize distinct vocalizations, including whistles and clicks, to navigate foraging environments shaped by human activity. This study employed passive acoustic monitoring to analyze dolphin communication in two contrasting Texas bay habitats: near shrimp trawlers and along seawalls. Findings reveal that whistles near trawlers exhibit greater complexity, likely reflecting social dynamics in mixed-age groups. In contrast, less structured click trains near seawalls indicate exploratory behavior in a more unpredictable setting.
Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) rely on whistles for group cohesion and coordination and on echolocation for prey detection and capture. In Texas bays, dolphins recurrently feed near shrimp trawlers and along seawalls, where they encounter different anthropogenic noises and prey availabilities. We used passive acoustic monitoring to compare whistles and click trains produced by dolphins foraging in these two human-modified habitats in the Texas Coastal Bend. Whistle sequences near trawlers exhibited greater contour diversity and complexity than those near seawalls, likely reflecting developmental and social influences within large mixed-age aggregations that included calves and young-of-year. Elevated group-level click and buzz activity near trawlers primarily reflected large group sizes rather than increased clicking by individuals, indicating collective echolocation effort. Higher proportions of buzz clicks and buzz-containing trains near trawlers indicate increased foraging effort and repeated prey-capture attempts when exploiting trawler-aggregated prey. Short, sparse, and more variable click trains near seawalls are consistent with exploratory echolocation in a less predictable foraging environment where the benefits of eavesdropping are reduced. The data show that social structure, prey resources, and habitat-specific noise shape communication and echolocation across the two foraging contexts.
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