Ana P. B. Costa

University of Miami | UM

Ectotherms are expected to be particularly vulnerable to climate change–driven increases in temperature. Understanding how populations adapt to novel thermal environments will be key for informing mitigation plans. We took advantage of threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) populations inhabiting adjacent geothermal (warm) and ambient (col...

Skull shape analysis provides useful information on wildlife ecology and potential local adaptations. Common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) often differentiate between coastal and offshore populations worldwide, and skull shape analyses can be particularly useful in this context. Here we quantify skull shape variation between coastal popu...

In the eastern Pacific Ocean, three distinct forms of common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) have been identified, with suggestions they may be different species: a southern California/Mexico coastal, a northern temperate offshore, and an eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) offshore form. Currently, only one species (T. truncatus) is recognized...

Gaining the ability to predict population responses to climate change is a pressing concern. Using a "natural experiment," we show that testing for divergent evolution in wild populations from contrasting thermal environments provides a powerful approach, and likely an enhanced predictive power for responses to climate change. Specifically, we used...

Integrative taxonomy can help us to gain a better understanding of the degree of evolutionary divergence between taxa. In the western North Atlantic (wNA), two ecotypes (coastal and offshore) of common bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, exhibit some external morphological differences, and previous genetic findings suggested that they could be...

JUSTIFICATION Lahille’s Bottlenose Dolphin, a subspecies of the Common Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), occurs in low numbers only in southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. Lahille’s Bottlenose Dolphins are mainly resident to localized areas and restricted to coastal habitat resulting in a vulnerability to increasing pressures from human a...

Coastal and offshore ecotypes of common bottlenose dolphins have been recognized in the western South Atlantic, and it is possible that trophic niche divergence associated with social interactions is leading them to genetic and phenotypic differentiation. The significant morphological differentiation observed between these ecotypes suggests they re...

Aquatic Biology - AB prepress abstract - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/ab00712 Bottlenose dolphin ecotypes of the western South Atlantic: the puzzle of dorsal fin shapes, colors and habitats Paulo C. Simões-Lopes*, Fábio G. Daura-Jorge, Liliane Lodi, Carolina Bezamat, Ana P. B. Costa, Leonardo L. Wedekin *Email: simoes_lopes@hotmail.com ABSTRAC...

Individuals often associate socially with those who behave the sameway. This principle, homophily, could structure populations into distinct social groups. We tested this hypothesis in a bottlenose dolphin population that appeared to be clustered around a specialized foraging tactic involving cooperation with net-casting fishermen, but in which oth...

Due to their worldwide distribution and occupancy of different types of environments, bottlenose dolphins display considerable morphological variation. Despite limited understanding about the taxonomic identity of such forms and connectivity among them at global scale, coastal (or inshore) and offshore (or oceanic) ecotypes have been widely recogni...

This paper describes cases of morphological variation and bone anomalies in the axial skeleton of the bottlenose dolphin, with emphasis on the vertebral column and considering the physical maturity of those specimens.

The taxonomy of Tursiops truncatus in the western South Atlantic is not resolved. Two different hypotheses have been proposed: (1) offshore and coastal ecotypes with a parapatric distribution, and (2) two species, T. truncatus and T. gephyreus, living in sympatry. To test these hypotheses, we examined a total of 100 physically mature skulls and 35...

The genetic structure of bottlenose dolphin communities found along the southern Brazilian coast is reported in this study. Genetic structure analysis using biopsy samples from free ranging dolphins and tissue samples from stranded dolphins revealed a fine-scale population structure among three distinct groups. The first genetically distinct group...

Age, sex and total length are important variables for the analysis of ontogeny, sexual dimorphism and geographic variation among cetaceans. The physical maturity of cetaceans can be determined through analysis of the fusion of vertebral epiphyses. The animal is considered physically mature when all the epiphyses are fused to the vertebral body and...