Christopher Newport University bottlenose dolphin sightings in Virginia estuaries 2000-2006
Andrew DiMatteo, US Navy
Dataset credit
Kevin Foss, Christopher Newport University; U.S. Department of the Navy
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Contacts
Role | Name | Organization | |
Primary contact |
Andrew DiMatteo |
US Dept. of the Navy Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic |
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Data entry |
Connie Kot |
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Citation
DiMatteo, A. 2014. Christopher Newport University bottlenose dolphin sightings in Virginia estuaries 2000-2006. Data downloaded from OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/1074) on yyyy-mm-dd. Halpin, P.N., A.J. Read, E. Fujioka, B.D. Best, B. Donnelly, L.J. Hazen, C. Kot, K. Urian, E. LaBrecque, A. Dimatteo, J. Cleary, C. Good, L.B. Crowder, and K.D. Hyrenbach. 2009. OBIS-SEAMAP: The world data center for marine mammal, sea bird, and sea turtle distributions. Oceanography. 22(2):104-115.
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Abstract
The Elizabeth River is bounded almost totally by industrial, urban, suburban, commercial shipping and military facilities. Tidal in nature, the river has low flow, resulting in heavy contamination loads. The population studied is the Northern Migratory Stock of the US Atlantic coast, appearing in this area from May through November. Standard small boat, focal group follow, passive observation techniques were used, along with photography of individuals. Data on location, group size estimates, activities observed and relevant environmental observations were recorded every five minutes. The dolphins appear as individuals or pairs in April and May, with group size increasing in June to a peak mean of 29 animals sighted per encounter. Group size then decreases in October and November. Probability of encountering dolphins ranges from 0% during the winter and early spring to over 80% in July, tapering off towards fall. Activity patterns show greatest diversity in July and August, with travel constituting the main activity early and late. Despite a peak of births in the area in May-June, there is little mating until July, with the incidence of sexual activity peaking in September.
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Purpose
To better understand the seasonality and behavior of bottlenose dolphins in the lower Chesapeake Bay.
Data were originally collected by Mr. Kevin Foss at Christopher Newport University during field seasons from 2000-2006. Data were subsequently acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2013.
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Supplemental information
[2015-03-24] A few records had a wrong animal count of zero. The value is replaced with a blank representing species presence only.
These data are the result of small boat transects with focal group follows, so that sightings were recorded at regular intervals. Therefore, there may be sightings of the same individuals at different times.
Records that originally estimated a range for the number of adults were attributed with the median number to be conservative.
Three records on land were excluded.
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References
Foss, K.M. and J.R. Reed. 2006. Utilization of urbanized estuaries by northern migratory coastal stock of bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus in Virginia, USA. Poster Presentation.
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Attributes
Overview
This section explains attributes included in the original dataset.
OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only.
Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.
Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
Only minimum required attributes are visible and downloadable online. Other attributes may be obtained upon provider's permission.
Attributes in dataset
Attribute (table column) | Description |
oid | Unique ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP) |
recid | Record ID (created by OBIS-SEAMAP |
encounter | Encounter number |
sp_obs | Species observed |
sp_tsn | Species ISTS TSN |
obs_date | Date of observation |
obs_time | Time of observation |
latitude | Latitude of observation |
longitude | Longitude of observation |
adults | Estimated number of adults |
neonates | Estimated number of neonates |
obs_count | Total number of animals observed |
t1 | T (Movement code) |
slow_t | Slow t (Movement code) |
m | M (Movement code) |
social | Social (Activity code) |
f | f (Activity code) |
fa | fa (Activity code) |
deep_fa | Deep fa (Activity code) |
dd | dd (Activity code) |
c | c (Individual actions code) |
ts | ts (Individual actions code) |
tp | tp (Individual actions code) |
frisking | frisking (Individual actions code) |
b | b (Individual actions code) |
fb | fb (Individual actions code) |
nj | nj (Individual actions code) |
watertemp | Water Temperature (degrees F) |
tide | Tide code |
comments1 | Comments (originally from provider |
time_out | Time out |
crew | Crew |
notes | Notes for when the original estimated number of adults was recorded as a range, and the median was used. |
geom | Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP |
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OBIS-SEAMAP ID | 1074 |
Seabirds | 0 |
Marine mammals | 998 |
Sea turtles | 0 |
Rays and sharks | 0 |
Other species | 0 |
Non spatial | 0 |
Non species | 0 |
Total | 998 |
Date, Begin | 2000-07-10 |
Date, End | 2006-07-25 |
Temporal prec. | 111110 |
Latitude | 36.75 - 36.98 |
Longitude | -76.46 - -76.11 |
Coord. prec. | 6 decimal digits |
Platform | Boat |
Data type | Animal sighting |
Effort | YES (ID: 1075) |
if ($show_effort_stat) {
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Traveled (km) | 352 |
Effort hours | 80 |
}
if ($sources != null and $sources != "" and $dataset_id != 427) { // Do not show ESAS
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Contr. through | |
}
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Registered | 2013-12-20 |
Updated | 2014-01-17 |
Status | Published |
Sharing policy |
CC-BY-NC (Minimum) |
Shared with |
OBIS
GBIF (via DOI) |
See metadata in static HTML |
See metadata in FGDC XML |
See download history / statistics |
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