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Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys

Systematic long-term monitoring of abundance is essential to inform conservation measures and evaluate their effectiveness. To instigate such work in the Pelagos Sanctuary in the Mediterranean, two aerial surveys were conducted in winter and summer 2009. A total of 467 (131 in winter, 336 in summer)...

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Autores principales: Panigada, Simone, Lauriano, Giancarlo, Burt, Louise, Pierantonio, Nino, Donovan, Greg
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146501/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21829544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022878
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author Panigada, Simone
Lauriano, Giancarlo
Burt, Louise
Pierantonio, Nino
Donovan, Greg
author_facet Panigada, Simone
Lauriano, Giancarlo
Burt, Louise
Pierantonio, Nino
Donovan, Greg
author_sort Panigada, Simone
collection PubMed
description Systematic long-term monitoring of abundance is essential to inform conservation measures and evaluate their effectiveness. To instigate such work in the Pelagos Sanctuary in the Mediterranean, two aerial surveys were conducted in winter and summer 2009. A total of 467 (131 in winter, 336 in summer) sightings of 7 species was made. Sample sizes were sufficient to estimate abundance of fin whales in summer (148; 95% CI = 87–254) and striped dolphins in winter (19,462; 95% CI = 12 939–29 273) and in summer (38 488; 95% CI = 27 447–53 968). Numbers of animals within the Sanctuary are significantly higher in summer, when human activities and thus potential population level impacts are highest. Comparisons with data from past shipboard surveys suggest an appreciable decrease in fin whales within the Sanctuary area and an appreciable increase in striped dolphins. Aerial surveys proved to be more efficient than ship surveys, allowing more robust estimates, with smaller CIs and CVs. These results provide essential baseline data for this marine protected area and continued regular surveys will allow the effectiveness of the MPA in terms of cetacean conservation to be evaluated and inform future management measures. The collected data may also be crucial in assessing whether ship strikes, one of the main causes of death for fin whales in the Mediterranean, are affecting the Mediterranean population.
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spelling pubmed-31465012011-08-09 Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys Panigada, Simone Lauriano, Giancarlo Burt, Louise Pierantonio, Nino Donovan, Greg PLoS One Research Article Systematic long-term monitoring of abundance is essential to inform conservation measures and evaluate their effectiveness. To instigate such work in the Pelagos Sanctuary in the Mediterranean, two aerial surveys were conducted in winter and summer 2009. A total of 467 (131 in winter, 336 in summer) sightings of 7 species was made. Sample sizes were sufficient to estimate abundance of fin whales in summer (148; 95% CI = 87–254) and striped dolphins in winter (19,462; 95% CI = 12 939–29 273) and in summer (38 488; 95% CI = 27 447–53 968). Numbers of animals within the Sanctuary are significantly higher in summer, when human activities and thus potential population level impacts are highest. Comparisons with data from past shipboard surveys suggest an appreciable decrease in fin whales within the Sanctuary area and an appreciable increase in striped dolphins. Aerial surveys proved to be more efficient than ship surveys, allowing more robust estimates, with smaller CIs and CVs. These results provide essential baseline data for this marine protected area and continued regular surveys will allow the effectiveness of the MPA in terms of cetacean conservation to be evaluated and inform future management measures. The collected data may also be crucial in assessing whether ship strikes, one of the main causes of death for fin whales in the Mediterranean, are affecting the Mediterranean population. Public Library of Science 2011-07-29 /pmc/articles/PMC3146501/ /pubmed/21829544 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022878 Text en Panigada et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Panigada, Simone
Lauriano, Giancarlo
Burt, Louise
Pierantonio, Nino
Donovan, Greg
Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title_full Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title_fullStr Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title_full_unstemmed Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title_short Monitoring Winter and Summer Abundance of Cetaceans in the Pelagos Sanctuary (Northwestern Mediterranean Sea) Through Aerial Surveys
title_sort monitoring winter and summer abundance of cetaceans in the pelagos sanctuary (northwestern mediterranean sea) through aerial surveys
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3146501/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21829544
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0022878
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