Association between porpoise presence and fish choruses:implications for feeding strategies and ecosystem-based conservation of the East Asian finless porpoise

The associations between feeding activities and environmental variables inform animal feeding tactics that max-imize energetic gains by minimizing energy costs while maximizing feeding success.Relevant studies in aquatic animals,particularly marine mammals,are scarce due to difficulties in the observation of feeding behaviors in aquatic environments.This data scarcity concurrently hinders ecosystem-basedfishery management in the context of small toothed-cetacean conservation.In the present study,a passive acoustic monitoring station was deployed in an East Asianfinless porpoise habitat in Laizhou Bay to investigate potential relationships between East Asianfinless porpoises and their prey.The data revealed that porpoises were acoustically present nearly every day during the survey period.Porpoise detection rates differed between spring and autumn in concert with activities offish choruses.During spring,fish choruses were present throughout the afternoon,and this was the time when porpoise vocalizations were the most frequently detected.During autumn,whenfish choruses were absent,porpoise detec-tion rates decreased,and diurnal patterns were not detected.The close association betweenfish choruses andfin-less porpoise activities implies an“eavesdropping”feeding strategy to maximize energetic gains,similar to other toothed cetaceans that are known to engage similar feeding strategies.Underwater noise pollution,particularly those maskingfish choruses,could interruptfinless porpoises’feeding success.Fisheries competing soniferousfishes withfinless porpoise could impactfinless porpoise viability through ecosystem disruption,in addition tofishing gear entanglement.

The intestinal microbiome of an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin(Sousa chinensis)stranded near the Pearl River Estuary,China

The mammalian intestinal microbiome is critical for host health and disease resistance.However,the cetacean intestinal microbiota remains relatively unexplored.By using high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing,we analyzed intestinal bacterial samples from an Indo-pacific humpback dolphin(Sousa chinensis)stranded near the Pearl River Estuary in China.The samples included 3 anatomical regions(foregut,midgut,and rectum)and 2 anatomical locations(content and mucus).Our analyses revealed that the dolphin intestinal bacteria contained 139 operational taxonomic units(OTUs),dominated at the phyla level by Firmicutes(47.05%in the content;94.77%in the mucus),followed by Bacteroidetes(23.63%in the content;1.58%in the mucus)and Gammaproteobacteria(14.82%in the content;2.05%in the mucus).The intestinal bacteria had a small core community(15 OTUs,accounting for 99.74%of the reads),some of which could be potentially pathogenic to both human and dolphins.As an alternative to sampling the dolphin intestinal bacteria,fecal sampling could be used.Additionally,function potentials such as,xenobiotics biodegradation,beta-lactam resistance,and human disease-related pathways,were detected in the dolphin intestinal bacteria.These findings provide the first baseline knowledge of the intestinal microbiome of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin,which may offer new insights into cetacean conservation by using microbial surveillance.