Unveiling Hotspots of Dolphin Presence Along the Florida Atlantic Coast

Monitoring marine mammals is often a challenging and expensive task. Traditional methods such as shipboard and aeriel surveys can be limited by weather conditions and can be cost prohibitive. In recent years, the use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) has become an increasingly valuable tool, allowing researchers to study marine mammals through their vocalizations.

Above is a map depicting the glider’s path during the three-month deployment.

During a three-month mission of an autonomous Wave Glider along the Florida Atlantic coast, we recorded two months of acoustic, and environmental data. Using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) we were able to assess the influence of different environmental variable on dolphin presence.

Our results revealed several hotspots of dolphin presence, particularly around St. Augustine, Ponce Inlet, and Cape Canaveral. These findings provide valuable insights into dolphin habitat preferences along Florida’s east coast and can help inform future management and conservation efforts.

To learn more about this project, check out our recent publication in PeerJ!