/ Science Sundays – You Are What You Eat: Investigating Diet and Vulnerability in Bottlenose Dolphins

Science Sundays – You Are What You Eat: Investigating Diet and Vulnerability in Bottlenose Dolphins

October 17, 2021
1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

This is an online webinar presented by:

Theresa-Anne Tatom-Naecker, Ph.D. Student

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, UC Santa Cruz

How do we study what cetaceans eat, and why should we care in the first place? Cetaceans increasingly face disturbances—including harmful algal blooms, commercial and recreational fishing, and climate change—that disrupt their access to prey, with consequences ranging from changes in prey choice and feeding behaviors to decreased fitness and death. Investigating diet, and how it varies in normal and disturbed environmental conditions, is critical if we want to understand how cetaceans are vulnerable and mitigate the effects of future disturbances.

Join Theresa to learn how scientists determine diet in marine mammals and how she uses fatty acid analysis to study what common bottlenose dolphins eat, how harmful algal blooms impact their diet, and what that indicates about their vulnerability to future disturbances.

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General Public, $10

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*Please register at least one hour prior to event start time. Registration closes at 12:30 PM PDT on Sunday, October 17, 2021.