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Seasonal patterns of heat loss in wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)

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Abstract

This study investigated patterns of heat loss in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) resident to Sarasota Bay, FL, USA, where water temperatures vary seasonally from 11 to 33°C. Simultaneous measurements of heat flux (HF) and skin surface temperature were collected at the body wall and appendages of dolphins during health-monitoring events in summer (June 2002–2004) and winter (February 2003–2005). Integument thickness was measured and whole body conductance (W/m2 °C) was estimated using HF and colonic temperature measurements. Across seasons, HF values were similar at the appendages, but their distribution differed significantly at the flipper and fluke. In summer, these appendages displayed uniformly high values, while in winter they most frequently displayed very low HF values with a few high HF values. In winter, blubber thickness was significantly greater and estimated conductance significantly lower, than in summer. These results suggest that dolphins attempt to conserve heat in winter. In winter, though, HF values across the body wall were similar to (flank) or greater than (caudal keel) summer values. It is likely that higher winter HF values are due to the steep temperature gradient between the body core and colder winter water, which may limit the dolphin’s ability to decrease heat loss across the body wall.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Chicago Zoological Society, the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program, Mote Marine Laboratory, Blair Irvine and Michael Scott for their help and support of field logistics. We are grateful to the many Sarasota Dolphin Research Program volunteers who spent long hours standing in Sarasota Bay so that these data could be collected. In particular, we appreciate the help we received with data collection from Ari Friedlaender and Michelle Barbieri. We thank Dolphin Quest, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, Sigma Xi, and the American Museum of Natural History Lerner-Gray Fund for Marine Research for funding. The research described in this paper has also been funded in part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowship Program. EPA has not officially endorsed this publication and the views expressed herein may not reflect the views of the EPA. The experiments conducted in this study comply with the current laws of the United States of America. Data were collected under NOAA Scientific Research Permit No. 522-1569 and UNCW IACUC No. 2002–009.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology and Marine Biology, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd, Wilmington, NC, 28403, USA

    Erin M. Meagher, William A. McLellan, Andrew J. Westgate & D. Ann Pabst

  2. Chicago Zoological Society, c/o Mote Marine Laboratory, 1600 Ken Thompson Parkway, Sarasota, FL, 34236, USA

    Randall S. Wells

  3. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd, Wilmington, NC, 28403, USA

    James E. Blum

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  1. Erin M. Meagher
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  2. William A. McLellan
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  3. Andrew J. Westgate
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  4. Randall S. Wells
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  5. James E. Blum
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  6. D. Ann Pabst
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erin M. Meagher.

Additional information

Communicated by G. Heldmaier.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 3

Table 3 Bottlenose dolphins from which heat flux, skin surface temperature, colonic temperature, and integument thickness data were collected (* represents animals not included in integument thickness calculations)
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Meagher, E.M., McLellan, W.A., Westgate, A.J. et al. Seasonal patterns of heat loss in wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). J Comp Physiol B 178, 529–543 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-007-0245-5

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