Paulo A.C. Flores

• PhD
• Analyst at Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio), MMA

Ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation are expected to intensify without significant climate mitigation. In tropical regions, rising ocean temperatures may push marine species to their thermal limits, leading to redistributions and cascading effects on communities and ecosystems. We evaluate how the future climate change scenarios could im...

Dolphins are among the most intelligent and endearing inhabitants of our oceans, captivating the hearts of people worldwide and connecting us to marine life. Unfortunately, many dolphin species face potential extinction due to human-induced threats such as habitat degradation, pollution, bycatch in fishing nets, climate change, and collisions with...

An individual reaction to natural threats, such as the presence of predators or aggressors, can shape the social behaviour of an entire population. In southern Brazil, two coastal Delphinid species, Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) and Lahille’s bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus gephyreus) co-occur on a regional scale. However, within Baía...

Assessing environmental changes in Southern Ocean ecosystems is difficult due to its remoteness and data sparsity. Monitoring marine predators that respond rapidly to environmental variation may enable us to track anthropogenic effects on ecosystems. Yet, many long-term datasets of marine predators are incomplete because they are spatially constrai...

Line transect aerial surveys are widely used for estimating abundance of biological populations, including threatened species. However, estimates obtained with data collected from aircraft are often underestimated because of visibility bias and bias in estimating group sizes from a fast-moving platform. An assessment of multiple sources of bias in...

Southern right whales (SRW) are capital breeders that use stored energy reserves to sustain themselves and their calves on nursery areas. With successful calving events declining in some SRW populations, it has been hypothesized that nutritional stress in adult females causes reproductive failure or death of calves shortly after birth. Here we comp...

Abstract We present estimates of the seasonal and spatial occupation by pinnipeds of the Wildlife Refuge of Ilha dos Lobos (WRIL), based on aerial photographic censuses. Twenty aerial photographic censuses were analysed between July 2010 and November 2018. To assess monthly differences in the numbers of pinnipeds in the WRIL we used a Generalized L...

This study investigated the repertoire, call-type variability and call rates of southern right whales on a calving ground off Brazil in the western South Atlantic. Acoustic tag data were collected from four lactating females and one juvenile. Pulsive, hybrid, and upcalls showed the greatest variability among call-types with up to 23% of non-standar...

This study investigated the repertoire, call-type variability and call rates of southern right whales on a calving ground off Brazil in the western South Atlantic. Acoustic tag data were collected from four lactating females and one juvenile. Pulsive, hybrid, and upcalls showed the greatest variability among call-types with up to 23% of non-standar...

As species recover from exploitation, continued assessments of connectivity and population structure are warranted to provide information for conservation and management. This is particularly true in species with high dispersal capacity, such as migratory whales, where patterns of connectivity could change rapidly. Here we build on a previous long-...

Southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) population structure can be viewed as a migratory network of winter calving/socialising and summer feeding grounds. Here we investigate the position of the Chile-Peru wintering ground (n = 1) and the South Georgia feeding ground (n = 15) in the broader migratory network, using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and...

Southern right whales—Eubalaena australis (Desmoulins, 1822)—migrate seasonally from high‐latitude feeding grounds to coastal breeding and calving grounds at lower latitudes such as the southern coast of Brazil. Understanding how these whales are distributed along the coast is important for monitoring their postwhaling recovery and defining managem...

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...

In the Southwest Atlantic, a key southern right whale wintering ground is found off southern Brazil. Aiming to collect reference information on the acoustic ecology of right whale mother-calf pairs in the region, we used two complementary passive acoustic monitoring methods. Recordings from autonomous archival devices were used to obtain the descri...

The information herein presented were compiled from six scientific articles, one undergraduate monographs, four master and three doctoral thesis and six working papers presented during the “I South American Meeting of Research and Conservation of Tursiops truncatus”, which was held in Rio Grande, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil between May 21-23, 2010. S...

We review information on the biology and ecology of common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean (SWAO) with emphasis on growth, feeding ecology, epizootics and parasites, predation and pathologies.

Aiming to gather information on southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mother-calf pairs' vocal behavior, archival acoustic recorders were deployed at a calving area off Brazil. Manual inspection of spectrograms revealed seven call classes: upcall, downcall, down-upcall, tonal variable , tonal constant, hybrid, and pulsive calls, which are cons...

Aiming to gather information on southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) mother-calf pairs' vocal behavior, archival acoustic recorders were deployed at a calving area off Brazil. Manual inspection of spectrograms revealed seven call classes: upcall, downcall, down-upcall, tonal variable, tonal constant, hybrid, and pulsive calls, which are consi...

The reproductive success of southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) depends on body condition and, therefore, on foraging success. This, in turn, might be affected by climatically driven change in the abundance of the species main prey, krill (Euphausia superba), on the feeding grounds. Annual data on southern right whale number of calves were o...

In this abstract/presentation we describe how we used two complementary PAM methods to investigate the vocal behaviour Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) off a nursery area off the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil.

In this work we compiled the available information about humans and bottlenose dolphin interactions in the Southwest Atlantic Ocean (SWAO), including issues as historical direct takes, incidental captures in fisheries, positive interactions with fisheries, interactions of dolphins with tourism and boat traffic, habitat modification or degradation,...

The coastal waters off the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, are an important wintering ground for Southern right whales (Eubalaena australis). Using synchronized surface-behavioral observations and acoustic recordings, we conducted a dedicated study of mother-calf pairs to determine the association between the use of call classes and the pair’s beh...

This study investigates the role of behavioral plasticity in the variation of sound production of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) in response to changes in the ambient background noise conditions. Data were collected from southern right whales in Brazilian waters in October and November 2011. The goal of this study was to quantify diffe...

Several delphinid species have shown genetic population structure, both between and within ocean basins. We investigated genetic differentiation in the rough-toothed dolphin, Steno bredanensis, using mitochondrial control region sequences from several localities worldwide (N = 112). Preliminary analyses indicated high levels of genetic differentiat...

Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) as a research and mitigation method is based on the vital importance of sound for some specie´s ecology. The development of PAM has increased the capacity of data acquisition over different temporal and spatial scales generating substantial amount of information to be processed and analysed by bioacousticians. Ther...

Knowledge about the ecology of bottlenose dolphins in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean is scarce. Increased by-catch rates over the last decade in coastal waters of southern Brazil have raised concerns about the decline in abundance of local dolphin communities. Lack of relevant data, including information on population structure and connectivity, h...

In order to increase intra-specific communication efficacy and to decrease probability of miscommunications errors and masking a certain degree of partition of a community`s acoustic space is expected. Aiming to investigate the acoustic partitioning of a marine vertebrate community composed by fish, dolphin and whale species, eight acoustic feature...

From the early 17th century to the 1970s southern right whales, Eubalaena australis, were subject to intense exploitation along the Atlantic coast of South America. Catches along this coast recorded by whalers originally formed a continuum from Brazil to Tierra del Fuego. Nevertheless, the recovery of the population has apparently occurred fragment...

Currently, there are three recognized species of right whales. The largest population is the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis), with circumpolar distribution in the southern hemisphere. One calving area for this population is in Brazilian waters, where increasing numbers of right whales have been sighted over the past decade along with an...

The direct count of whales could provide information on population trends. Aerial surveys for southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) have been conducted in the South of Brazil since 1987 for census, individual identification through photographs, behaviour studies, and an evaluation of anthropogenic threats. Direct count of any whale sighted fr...

Dolphins of the genus Sotalia (Delphinidae) occur along the Atlantic and Caribbean coasts of South and Central America and in the Amazon and Orinoco River basins (Flores and Da Silva, 2009; da Silva et al., 2010 this volume; Gómez-Salazar et al., 2010 this volume). The genus has been divided into two species based on skull morphology (Monteiro Filh...

Home ranges of seven Guiana dolphins (Sotalia guianensis) (Van Bénéden, 1864) were studied in the Cananéia estuary (~25°03′S 47°55′W), south-eastern Brazil. Boat-based observations were conducted from May 2000 to July 2003 in ~132 km2 of protected inner waters. The photo-identification technique was used to follow naturally marked individuals throu...

The southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) was one of the most intensively hunted whales between the 17th and 20th centuries in the southern hemisphere. Recent estimates indicate that today there are around 7000 whales, representing 5 to 10% of its original population. On the other hand, recent studies estimated that the population that migrate...

Commensal associations between Guiana dolphins Sotalia guianensis and sea birds, Larus dominicanus, Sula leucogaster, Sterna sp. and Fregata magnificens have been frequently observed during the feeding behavior of the dolphins in the North Bay of Santa Catarina, (26°00'-28°25'S, 48°30'-48°49'W), Southern Brazil. Boat and land surveys were performed...

The aim of this study was to characterize the feeding behavior of the Guiana dolphin, S. guianensis, through description and quantification of the strategies used by the dolphins, and possibly to apply this patterns to other areas in its distribution. Data were collected during systematic boat surveys, between November/1996 and May/1997, with 120 h...

This chapter explores the two species of the genus Sotalia, riverine Sotalia fluviatilis and marine S. guianensis. The two Sotalia species are very similar in coloration, differing mainly in body size and number of teeth, and somewhat resembling a small bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops. They are light gray to bluish gray on the back and pinkish to ligh...

Durante los años 2002 y 2003 se estudió el uso de hábitat y comportamiento de Sotalia guianensis. Se emplearon metodologías de SIG y muestreo grupo focal en la Bahía Norte, incluyendo el Área de Protección Ambiental de Anhatomirim (APAA). El tiempo de observación (243:58h) fue transformado en porcentaje y se calculó el Coeficiente del Uso del Área...

Caused by a yeast-like organism known as Lacazia loboi, Lobomycosis (or lacaziosis) naturally affects humans, common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabiting coastal waters from southern Brazil to Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast of Florida, as well as botos-cinza (Sotalia guianensis). These species are usually found in coastal waters,...

Caused by a yeast-like organism known as Lacazia loboi, Lobomycosis (or lacaziosis) naturally affects humans, common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabiting coastal waters from southern Brazil to Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast of Florida, as well as botos-cinza (Sotalia guianensis). These species are usually found in coastal waters,...

During 2002 and 2003, the habitat use and behavior of Sotalia guianensis were studied using focal group observation and GIS at Baía Norte, southern Brazil, including a marine protected area (EPAA). The observation time (243:58h) was transformed in percentage and it was calculated a Coefficient of Area Use (AU) and in cells of 0.25 km 2. Dolphins he...

The marine tucuxi ( Sotalia guianensis) occurs in coastal waters of western Central and South America sympatric to the bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus) throughout its range. This paper presents information on ecology based on 228 marine tucuxi and 36 bottlenose dolphin sightings collected during 226 boat-based surveys conducted from 1993 to...

Right whales (Eubalaena australis) that gather on a wintering ground off southern Brazil have been aerial surveyed and photographically identified since 1987. As of 2003 the Brazilian Right Whale Catalogue has 315 different individual whales of which 31 were resighted in other years (23 females, 3 yearlings and 5 whales of unknown age/sex). No resi...

The current taxonomic status of Sotalia species is uncertain. The genus once comprised five species, but in the twentieth century they were grouped into two (riverine Sotalia fluviatilis and marine Sotalia guianensis) that later were further lumped into a single species (S. fluviatilis), with marine and riverine ecotypes. This uncertainty hampers t...

Marine tucuxi dolphins (Sotalia fluviatilis) studied in Baía Norte, southern Brazil, exhibited very small overall home ranges with daylight movements in consistent water depths of around 3m. Mean overall home range areas calculated through two methodologies were similar, measuring 13.38km² ± 1.92 using the Minimum Convex Polygon method and 15.22km²...

Individual photo-identification studies of southern right whales (Eubalaena australis) during their nursing season have been undertaken along the southern Brazilian coast from fixed-wing aircraft from 1987 to 1994, and 1997. Photo-identification data were also obtained from a small inflatable boat from 1995 to 1998 and from helicopter in

Aerial surveys are considered the most effective way of estimating abundance of franciscanas (Pontoporia blainvillei). However, estimates obtained with data collected from aircrafts are often underestimated because of visibility bias or bias in estimating group sizes from a fast-moving platform. Independent boat and aerial surveys were concurrently...