Skip Navigation


ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on April 3, 2008
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2008 65(4):656-666; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn046
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
65/4/656    most recent
fsn046v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Certain, G.
Right arrow Articles by Bretagnolle, V.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Certain, G.
Right arrow Articles by Bretagnolle, V.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© 2008 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Delphinid spatial distribution and abundance estimates over the shelf of the Bay of Biscay

G. Certain1,2, V. Ridoux2, O. van Canneyt3 and V. Bretagnolle1

1 CEBC-CNRS Chizé UPR 1934, Villiers-en-Bois F-79360, Beauvoir sur Niort, France
2 CRELA UMR 6217, Université de La Rochelle, 23 avenue Albert Einstein, 17071 La Rochelle Cedex 9, France
3 Centre de Recherches sur les Mammifères Marins, ILE, Université de La Rochelle, 23 avenue Albert Einstein, 17071 La Rochelle Cedex 9, France

Correspondence to G. Certain: tel: +33 549 096 111/481; fax: +33 549 096 526; e-mail: gregoirecertain{at}hotmail.com

Certain, G., Ridoux, V., van Canneyt, O., and Bretagnolle, V. 2008. Delphinid spatial distribution and abundance estimates over the shelf of the Bay of Biscay. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 656–666.

The small delphinid community (bottlenose Tursiops truncatus, common Delphinus delphis, and striped Stenella coeruleoalba dolphins) of the Bay of Biscay (100 000 km2 of continental shelf along the French Atlantic coast) has been studied here by combining strip-transect aerial surveys conducted between 2001 and 2004 and ship-based surveys conducted between 2003 and 2006. Distribution was modelled spatially in relation to several large-scale descriptors of the environment. Highest densities of small delphinids were associated with the shelf break, in particular in two hotspots located in the north and the south of the bay. Using ship-based data, we found strong spatial segregation between common and bottlenose dolphins in spring, with common dolphins associated with coastal areas (and especially river plumes) and bottlenose dolphins on the outer shelf and the shelf break. Assuming a detection probability of 1, a strip-transect abundance estimate for the small delphinid community was obtained in August 2002 with 56 500 (95% CI 29 100–90 400), but relative abundance varied across months.

Keywords: abundance estimates, Bay of Biscay, dolphins, small delphinids, spatial distribution, transect surveys

Received 17 April 2007; accepted 28 February 2008; advance access publication 3 April 2008.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.