The Marine Mammals Program at
CCEHBR is centered on the useful scientific role that marine mammals serve
as sentinels of coastal ecosystem health. As "canaries in the coal mine", they add an
important dimension to Integrated Ecosystem Assessments, which are geared towards
understanding, predicting and modeling coastal area conditions.
Most of our research is focused on the bottlenose dolphin, which is the most common cetacean
species found in the coastal waters of the southeastern US. Because bottlenose dolphins
are year-round residents of coastal areas that are impacted by local anthropogenic
activities, they are a key ecological resource that can provide early warnings of
current and impending negative exposures and/or risks to human health.
Goals
- Identify emerging contaminants and diseases in marine mammal populations
- Determine routes of exposure and fate and transport of hazardous biological and
chemical substances in ecosystems inhabited by marine mammals
- Examine toxicological responses of marine mammals to emerging and legacy contaminants
- Identify fishery impacts on marine mammals
- Relate marine mammal population health, abundance, density, distribution, survival
and reproductive success to habitat use and environmental stressors
- Examine the temporal and spatial distribution of stranded marine mammals
- Use information on the status of marine mammal health as an indicator of environmental conditions that may be posing threats to humans and other coastal species.
Capabilities
- Marine mammal health (capture-release studies) and toxicological assessments (e.g., surrogate models and cell
cultures)
- Post-mortem analysis of stranded marine mammals
- In-situ surveillance of marine mammal population distributions and condition
Staff
To view a list of the staff in this program, visit the staff listing.
Projects