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The Dusky Dolphin
1st Edition
Master Acrobat Off Different Shores
Editors:
Bernd Würsig
Melany Wursig
eBook ISBN: 9780080920351
Hardcover ISBN: 9780123737236
Imprint: Academic Press
Published Date: 9th September 2009
Page Count: 416
Description
The Dusky Dolphin: Master Acrobat Off Different Shores covers various topics about the dusky dolphin, including its taxonomy, history and demography, ecology, and behavior. After introducing the dusky dolphin as a member of the genus Lagenorhynchus under the family Delphinidae, the book continues by describing its life history, its demographic patterns, and its role in the food web considering predation, parasitism, and competition. The book also includes chapters that discuss the interaction of the dusky dolphin with its habitats, such as the dusky dolphin’s sound production, its foraging at night and in daylight, its survival strategies in response to predator threats, the mating habits of New Zealand duskies, calf rearing, sexual segregation, and genetic relationships. Other chapters address the interaction of dusky dolphins with humans.
This book offers information about dusky dolphins off Southern Africa and discussions about the patterns of sympatry in Lagenorhynchus and Cephalorhynchus. Finally, comparisons between dusky dolphins and great apes as large-brained mammals are also reviewed in this book.
Key Features
- Only book fully devoted to the southern hemisphere "dusky" dolphin
- Heavily illustrated with charts, figures, tables, and all color photos
- Written by a cadre of experts intimately familiar with dolphin field work
- Written in an accurate yet accessible style for the scientist and natural historian alike
Readership
Marine biologists; mammalogists; students of animal behavior; students of social ecology
Table of Contents
Preface
About the Editors
1. The Dusky Dolphins’ Place in the Delphinid Family Tree
2. Dusky Dolphin Life History and Demography
3. Dusky Dolphin Trophic Ecology: Their Role in the Food Web
4. Acoustics of Dusky Dolphins
5. Dusky Dolphins Foraging at Night
6. Dusky Dolphins Foraging in Daylight
7. Predator Threats and Dusky Dolphin Survival Strategies
8. Mating Habits of New Zealand Dusky Dolphins
9. Dusky Dolphin Calf Rearing
10. Sexual Segregation and Genetic Relatedness in New Zealand
11. Human Interactions with Dusky Dolphins: Harvest, Fisheries, Habitat Alteration, and Tourism
12. Human Interactions with Dusky Dolphins: A Management Perspective
13. Dolphin Swimming and Watching: One Tourism Operator’s Perspective
14. Neglected But Not Forgotten—Southern Africa’s Dusky Dolphins
15. Patterns of Sympatry in Lagenorhynchus and Cephalorhynchus: Dolphins in Different Habitats
16. A Large-brained Social Animal
17. Social Creatures in a Changing Sea: Concluding Remarks
References
Glossary
Index
Details
- No. of pages:
- 416
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- © Academic Press 2010
- Published:
- 9th September 2009
- Imprint:
- Academic Press
- eBook ISBN:
- 9780080920351
- Hardcover ISBN:
- 9780123737236
About the Editor
Bernd Würsig
Bernd Würsig, his students, and postdocs have studied marine mammals and sea birds on all continents, with present work mainly on dusky dolphins in diverse habitats of New Zealand, and beleaguered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins of Hong Kong. His specialties are questions of behavior and social strategies, especially as related to human disturbance. He has published and co-published about 190 peer review papers and book chapters, 55 popular articles, and 8 books. The most recent book is “Dusky Dolphins; Master Acrobats off Different Shores” (with Melany Würsig, 2010, Academic/Elsevier). He is a past-president of the Society for Marine Mammalogy, and was the inaugural chair of the Texas A&M Marine Biology Graduate Program. He is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Texas A&M. Bernd and Melany enjoy their natural gardens in New Zealand, the Arizona desert, and coastal south Texas, three marvelously-different biomes.
Affiliations and Expertise
Texas A&M University, Galveston, Texas, USA
Melany Wursig
Reviews
"... this beautifully illustrated book, with many color photos (e.g., p. 247) and close to a thousand combined references at the end for easy look-up, is the very best to date describing our current state of knowledge on the dusky dolphin—and in doing so shedding light on the life of any other delphinid, too, for that matter. The Dusky Dolphin, simply put, is one of those classics which should not be missing from the shelves of anyone in the marine mammal field." --Michiel Schotten, Department of Marine Biology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
"Chapters are well written and the mostly high-quality color figures are useful and relevant. This volume illustrates that the incremental progress made in any individual study can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of a species. This ‘big picture’ is lacking for many species, but is sorely needed as management issues continue to become more complicated and pressing as we move further into the 21st century." --Quarterly Review of Biology, September 2012, page 273