Ecology and conservation of cetaceans in southern iberian waters
[eng] This thesis fills important gaps of knowledge that will help to develop a proper conservation strategy for cetaceans in southern Iberian waters. We were able to define different ecological management units for bottlenose dolphins (Chapter 3) that may assist in the implementation of specific co...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis doctoral |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2018 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Barcelona |
| Repositorio: | Dipòsit Digital de la UB |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/125044 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2445/125044 http://hdl.handle.net/10803/662969 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Ecologia marina Creus, Cap de (Catalunya) Marine ecology Creus, Cape (Catalonia) |
| Sumario: | [eng] This thesis fills important gaps of knowledge that will help to develop a proper conservation strategy for cetaceans in southern Iberian waters. We were able to define different ecological management units for bottlenose dolphins (Chapter 3) that may assist in the implementation of specific conservation strategies for each of the units. Dietary information of bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Cádiz (Chapter 4) as for common dolphins in the Strait of Gibraltar and Alboran Sea (Chapter 6) is now firstly available. With this information, we assessed the prey consumption by common dolphins in the Alboran Sea (Chapter 6), highlighting the potential competition with local fisheries. Hence, new marine protected areas were proposed in conjunction with a threat-based strategy to preserve the endangered common dolphin population of the Alboran Sea (Chapter 7). In addition, this thesis revealed that cetacean species can partition their trophic and spatial niche to allow them to coexist (Chapter 5). Further, we provide essential values for the reconstruction of cetacean diets through stable isotope analysis that can be used worldwide to properly assess assimilated preys (Chapter 1), making also available a great amount of otolith-fish size relationships (Chapter 2), extremely useful for predator-prey studies. Overall, the importance of this thesis mainly resides in providing important information for a better conservation of cetaceans in southern Iberian waters, but also applicable to other locations where marine top predators are under study. This is an important step forward in the study of ecology and conservation of cetaceans and at the same time, opens new questions to be solved. |
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