Janet Mann

Georgetown University | GU · Department of Biology

Infectious respiratory diseases have detrimental impacts across wildlife taxa, particularly in marine species. Despite this vulnerability, we lack information on the complex spatial and contact structures of marine populations which reduces our ability to understand disease spread and our preparedness for epidemic response. We leveraged a collated...

Assessing trends in population abundance and demographics is crucial for managing long‐lived and slow‐reproducing species. Obtaining demographic data, and age‐structure information, is challenging, notably for cetaceans. To address this, we combined Unoccupied Aerial System (UAS; drone) photogrammetry data with long‐term (>20 years) photo identific...

Anthropogenic global change is occurring at alarming rates, leading to increased urgency in the ability to monitor wildlife health in real time. Monitoring sentinel marine species, such as bottlenose dolphins, is particularly important due to extensive anthropogenic modifications to their habitats. The most common non-invasive method of monitoring...

High population density should drive individuals to more frequently share space and interact, producing better-connected spatial and social networks. Despite this widely-held assumption, it remains unconfirmed how local density generally drives individuals' positions within wild animal networks. We analysed 34 datasets of simultaneous spatial and s...

Because climate change and the biodiversity crisis are driven by human actions, determining psychological mechanisms underpinning support for environmental action is an urgent priority. Here, we experimentally tested for mechanisms promoting conservation-related motivation and behavior toward a flagship species, wild Tamanend's bottlenose dolphins....

Dolphin morbillivirus has caused mass mortalities in dolphin populations globally. Given their role as ecosystem sentinels, mass mortalities among these populations can be detrimental. Morbillivirus is transmitted through respiratory droplets and occurs when dolphins breathe synchronously, a variable social behavior. To assess the role of variable...

Infanticide by adult males is a striking example of sexual conflict; males can increase their reproductive success by killing an unrelated infant and accelerating the mother’s return to breeding condition. Reports of infanticide in cetaceans have quadrupled in the past decade, and infanticide has now been documented in six species of toothed whale,...

Research on sex biases in longevity in mammals often assumes that male investment in competition results in a female survival advantage that is constant throughout life. We use 35 years of longitudinal data on 1003 wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) to examine age-specific mortality, demonstrating a time-varying effect of sex on mortality...

Barnacles can reveal much about the physiology, health, and spatial ecology of their cetacean hosts. Here, we examine how temperature and hydrodynamic factors impact presence of Xenobalanus globicipitis, a pseudo-stalked barnacle that attaches exclusively to cetaceans. We hypothesized that temperature is a key environmental factor (i.e., water temp...

Long-term study of killer whales reveals that sons stay with their mothers for life, and although this benefits sons, it negatively impacts the mother's reproductive output.

The quantity and quality of individual social relationships is a fundamental feature of social structure for group-living species. In many species, individuals preferentially associate with close relatives, which can amplify social benefits through inclusive fitness. Reproductive variation, dispersal and other factors may nevertheless impact relati...

In mammals, reproductive success can often be directly observed for females, but not males. Early-life correlates of female reproductive success can also be easier to observe due to higher rates of philopatry. Though relatively uncommon, populations in which both sexes remain in their natal home ranges can facilitate studies of mate choice and sex-...

Social bonds and social structure are important features of animal systems that impact individual fitness. Few studies have examined how temporal dynamics in individual social bonds predict fitness outcomes. This is critical to understand given the high variation in types of social structures and strategies within populations of social mammals, bot...

Humans have been altering wildlife habitatsHabitat and wildlife behavior worldwide at an accelerated pace in recent decades. While it is well-understood how human-induced behavioral changes affect infectious disease risk in terrestrial wildlife, less is known in marine life. Here we examine this link in marine mammalMarine mammals populations by (1...

Resource competition among conspecifics is central to social evolution, as it serves as one of the primary selective pressures of group living. This is because the degree of competition for resources impacts the costs and benefits of social interactions. Despite this, how heterogeneity in resource competition drives variation in the type and quanti...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170641.][This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.170641.].

Behavioral phenotypic traits or “animal personalities” drive critical evolutionary processes such as fitness, disease and information spread. Yet the stabilit y of behavioral traits, essential by definition, has rarely been measured over developmentally significant periods of time, limiting our understanding of how behavioral stability interacts wi...

The niche describes the ecological and social environment that an organism lives in, as well as the behavioural tactics used to interact with its environment. A species niche is key to both ecological and evolutionary processes, including speciation, and has therefore been a central focus in ecology. Recent evidence, however, points to considerable...

As demands for wildlife tourism increase, provisioning has become a popular means of providing up-close viewing to the public. At Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Australia, up to five adult female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) visit a 100 m stretch of beach daily to receive fish handouts. In 2011, a severe marine heatwave (MHW) devasta...

Humans have been altering wildlife habitats and wildlife behavior worldwide at an accelerated pace in recent decades. While it is well-understood how human-induced behavioral changes affect infectious disease risk in terrestrial wildlife, less is known in marine life. Here we examine this link in marine mammal populations by (1) conducting a system...

The juvenile period is a challenging life-history stage, especially in species with a high degree of fission-fusion dynamics, such as bottlenose dolphins, where maternal protection is virtually absent. Here, we examined how juvenile male and female bot-tlenose dolphins navigate this vulnerable period. Specifically, we examined their grouping patter...

Social behavior is an important driver of infection dynamics, though identifying the social interactions that foster infectious disease transmission is challenging. Here we examine how social behavior impacts disease transmission in Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) using an easily identifiable skin disease and social network data...

Direct pathogen and parasite transmission is fundamentally driven by a population’s contact network structure and its demographic composition and is further modulated by pathogen life-history traits. Importantly, populations are most often concurrently exposed to a suite of pathogens, which is rarely investigated, because contact networks are typic...

Abstract: The viability of populations depends on metapopulation dynamics: the combination of reproduction and mortality within populations, as well as dispersal between populations. Population viability is also dependent on genetic diversity, which is essential for populations to adapt to environmental change. This study focuses on an Indo-Pacific...

Obtaining morphometric data on free-ranging marine megafauna is difficult, as traditional methods rely on post-mortem or live-capture techniques. We linked stereo-laser photogrammetry with long-term demographic data to compare length-at-age (LaA) growth curves of two well-studied populations of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) in...

Odontocetes are characterized by slow life histories and extensive maternal care, where offspring nurse for years in some species. Among some of the largest toothed whales, the mother and offspring of one or both sexes stay together for a lifetime, forming the basis of strong matrilineal social units and transmission of culture along maternal lines...

Cetaceans are fully aquatic predatory mammals that have successfully colonized virtually all marine habitats. Their adaptation to these habitats, so radically different from those of their terrestrial ancestors, can give us comparative insights into the evolution of female roles and kinship in mammalian societies. We provide a review of the diversi...

Manlik, O., Krützen, M., Kopps, A. M., Mann, J., Bejder, L., Allen, S. J., Frere, C., Connor, R.C., Sherwin, W. B. (2019). Data from: Is MHC diversity a better marker for conservation than neutral genetic diversity? A case study of two contrasting dolphin populations. Dryad Digital Repository. https ://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73k278d

Genetic diversity is essential for populations to adapt to changing environments. Measures of genetic diversity are often based on selectively neutral markers, such as microsatellites. Genetic diversity to guide conservation management, however, is better reflected by adaptive markers, including genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC)....

This is the supplementary material to the article "Is MHC diversity a better marker for conservation than neutral genetic diversity? A case study of two contrasting dolphin population" (Manlik et al. 2019)

Kinship plays a fundamental role in the evolution of social systems and is considered a key driver of group living. To understand the role of kinship in the formation and maintenance of social bonds, accurate measures of genetic relatedness are critical. Genotype‐by‐sequencing technologies are rapidly advancing the accuracy and precision of genetic...

Social living brings competition over mates, relationships, and resources, which can translate to direct conflict. In dolphins, tooth rakes received from conspecifics are highly visible and reliable indicators of conflict. New rakes indicate recent conflicts while healed rakes suggest older instances of conflict. Here, we investigate the healing ti...

Reproductive senescence is evident across many mammalian species. An emerging perspective considers components of reproductive senescence as evolutionarily distinct phenomena: fertility senescence and maternal-effect senescence. While fertility senescence is regarded as the ageing of reproductive physiology, maternal-effect senescence pertains to t...

This book addresses the issue of animal welfare within the tourism experience. Part I of the book provides a conceptual and historical foundation upon which to analyse animal welfare and the position of animals in tourism, and how these two issues intersect. Part II consists of 14 opinion pieces that discuss various issues associated with animal we...

Maternal care varies across taxa from brief, minimal care to long-term, intensive care. Mammalian mothers provide extensive and energetically expensive care by definition through pregnancy and lactation, which can extend for years, resulting in behavioural trade-offs between resource acquisition and direct care. In marine environments, mammalian mo...

Sexual segregation is widespread in mammals, although the proximate causes are poorly understood in monomorphic species. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), which exhibit a high degree of fission–fusion dynamics, offer a useful lens to examine the ecological and social drivers of sexual segregation. While ecological hypotheses sugg...

Entanglement in marine debris has become a serious matter for marine fauna, yet most data come from deceased animals. Here we studied a non-lethal entanglement event involving a female juvenile bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus), known as EDE, in Shark Bay, Western Australia who has been monitored and observed since birth as part of a long-term...

The disease costs of sociality have largely been understood through the link between group size and transmission. However, infectious disease spread is driven primarily by the social organization of interactions in a group and not its size. We used statistical models to review the social network organization of 47 species, including mammals, birds,...

The disease costs of sociality have largely been understood through the link between group size and transmission. However, infectious disease spread is driven primarily by the social organization of interactions in a group and not its size. We used statistical models to review the social network organization of 47 species, including mammals, birds,...

In fission-fusion societies, group size and composition change dynamically, reflecting social preferences and pressures. Most notably during reproduction, intersexual group dynamics reflect a balance between female choice for optimal mates and male competition for mating access. In systems where males and females remain in their natal area for life...

Long-term studies often rely on natural markings for individual identification across time. The primary method for identification in small cetaceans relies on dorsal fin shape, scars, and other natural markings. However, dorsal fin markings can vary substantially over time and the dorsal fin can become unrecognizable after an encounter with a boat...

Electronic supplementary material is available online at https://dx. Animal sociality is of significant interest to evolutionary and behavioural ecologists, with efforts focused on the patterns, causes and fitness outcomes of social preference. However, individual social patterns are the consequence of both attraction to (preference for) and avoida...

Figure of two dolphins utilisation distributions and randomised spatial positions; Figure of daily MCPs; Correlations of home range overlap generated with increasing numbers of sightings per individual

Sex differences in adult behaviour are well documented, but less is known about the ontogeny of these differences. In mammals, the transition to independence, from infancy to the juvenile period, is when these sex differences are likely to become prominent. Here, we examined sex differences in behavioural development among calf and juvenile bottlen...

Although aquatic mammals are elusive subjects, long-term studies of cetaceans have revealed remarkable life-history traits, including long life spans, bisexual philopatry, prolonged maternal care, and even menopause. Long-term cetacean research, defined here as studies lasting ≥ 10 years, has also helped shape our understanding of large multilevel...

An Unusual Mortality Event (UME) attributed to cetacean morbillivirus was declared for common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) along the U.S. Atlantic coast between July 2013 and December 31, 2015; approximately 1,650 dolphins stranded from New York to Florida. However, the stock identity of these dolphins is largely unknown, therefore the...

Sexual coercion results from extreme conflict over mating. As a male strategy to overcome female resistance, coercion can impose fitness costs on females. Among mammals, most cases involve single males or temporary coalitions, with allied aggression towards females being rare. Among Shark Bay bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops cf. aduncus, male alliance...

It has been proposed that in slow‐growing vertebrate populations survival generally has a greater influence on population growth than reproduction. Despite many studies cautioning against such generalizations for conservation, wildlife management for slow‐growing populations still often focuses on perturbing survival without careful evaluation as t...

Appendix S1 Study sites; includes Fig. S1 Appendix S2 Parameters other than reproductive and survival rates; includes Table S2 Appendix S3 Reproductive and survival rates; includes Fig. S3, Table S3 Appendix S4 Applicability of capture‐mark‐recapture methodology; includes Fig. S4 Appendix S5 Results of standard models: Fig. S5 Appendix S6 Elas...

Network null models are important to drawing conclusions about individual- and population-(or graph) level metrics. While the null models of binary networks are well studied, recent literature on weighted networks suggests that: (1) many so-called ‘weighted metrics’ do not actually depend on weights, and (2) many metrics that supposedly measure hig...

In this chapter, we explore examples of novel, unusual, and atypical behavior by both wild and captive whales and dolphins in an effort to inform our understanding of cetacean innovative and creative abilities. While innovative and perhaps creative behavior occurs in a variety of contexts for both suborders, far more examples have been observed in...

Effective foraging is necessary for nearly all animals, but most animals are not born with adult-like foraging performance. Instead, foraging skills are developed during an individual’s lifetime. Life-history theory predicts that adult-level foraging performance should be reached prior to the start of reproduction, but for most species, we know lit...

An individual's fitness is determined by traits such as mate choice, reproductive output, resistance to parasites and survival to old age. The search for the genetic basis of fitness variation has until recently often relied on neutral genetic markers, including mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites. However, ecological and evolutionary processes r...

Long-term studies of social animals provide detailed data on individual attributes, behaviors, and associations that enable us to explore cultural diffusion in networks. In this essay, we describe how network science can be used to improve our understanding of cultural and information transmission. After presenting an operational denition of cultur...

Marine mammals are globally significant because of their sensitivity to environmental change and threatened status, often serving as ‘ecosystem sentinels’. Disease is a major cause of marine mammal population decline and the role of the microbiome in disease has generated considerable interest. Recent research in humans has greatly enhanced our und...

Extending graph models to incorporate uncertainty is important for many applications, including citation networks, disease transmission networks, social networks, and observational networks. These networks may have existence probabilities associated with nodes or edges, as well as probabilities associated with attribute values of nodes or edges. Co...

Activity budget data are essential for determining behavioral responses to physiological and ecological variables. Yet, few studies are available to investigate the robustness, accuracy, and biases of the methods used to estimate activity budgets for cetaceans. In this study, we compare activity budgets of 55 adult female bottlenose dolphins in Sha...

To better address questions concerning animal sociality, animal behaviorists and behavioral ecologists are increasingly turning to the suite of analytical techniques known as social network analysis (SNA). SNA allows for the quantification of multi-actor interactions, thereby providing a more realistic representation of social patterns and relation...

Behavioral research and analysis is prone to both error and bias, particularly in the early stages of a discipline, in part because it is widely (and erroneously) believed that “behavior” is rather simple and can be easily described or quantified. However, since the 1970s for terrestrial animals, and since the late 1990s for marine mammals, systema...

Bottlenose dolphins are attractive candidates for the application of social network analysis (SNA), in part because of their complex fission–fusion social organization characterized by dynamic, temporally variable groups. In Shark Bay, Western Australia, researchers have studied the resident bottlenose dolphins since 1982. Using data on two calves...

Gregarious animals face unavoidable conflicts of interest and thus therefore are likely to evolve behavioral mechanisms that allow them to manage conflict and thus maintain their social bonds. Multiple forms of conflict management characterize primates, but far less research has focused on dolphins, especially under natural conditions. Captive stud...

Given limited resources and time for conservation actions, it is crucial to focus wildlife management recommendations on vital rates that have the greatest impact on population viability. It has been proposed that in slow-growing animal populations, including most marine mammals, adult survival has a greater influence on population growth than repr...

Tool-use research has focused primarily on land-based animals, with less consideration given to aquatic animals and the environmental challenges and conditions they face. Here, we review aquatic tool use and examine the contributing ecological, physiological, cognitive and social factors. Tool use among aquatic animals is rare but taxonomically div...

Many species use tools, but the mechanisms underpinning the behaviour differ between species and even among individuals within species, depending on the variants performed. When considering tool use 'as adaptation', an important first step is to understand the contribution made by fixed phenotypes as compared to flexible mechanisms, for instance le...

Extending graph models to incorporate uncertainty is important for many applications, including disease transmission networks, where edges may have a disease transmission probability associated with them, and social networks, where nodes may have an existence probability associated with them. Analysts need tools that support analysis and comparison...

This paper presents a framework for identifying persistent groups and individuals across multiple time granularities in dynamic graphs. Understanding the longevity of groups and the relevance of individuals within a group is important in many fields, including sociology, biology, economics, psychology, and political science. Different clustering al...