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Prenatal data impacts common bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) growth parameters estimated by length‐at‐age curves
Author(s) -
Neuenhoff Rachel D.,
Cowan Daniel F.,
Whitehead Heidi,
Marshall Christopher D.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
marine mammal science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.723
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1748-7692
pISSN - 0824-0469
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2010.00394.x
Subject(s) - gompertz function , growth curve (statistics) , bottlenose dolphin , growth rate , mammal , biology , marine mammal , growth model , demography , statistics , ecology , zoology , geography , mathematics , geometry , mathematical economics , sociology
Compilation of marine mammal demographic data is central to management efforts. However, marine mammal length‐at‐age growth curves demonstrate limitations. Physiological growth parameters of terrestrial mammals are typically estimated using curvilinear models fit to size‐at‐age data along a time series from conception to senescence. The difficulty of collecting and aging prenatal cetaceans is addressed here, and growth parameters of common bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops truncatus ) along coastal Texas were estimated using length‐at‐age information from a broader scope of age classes, including late‐term fetuses. A Gompertz growth curve fit to pre‐ and postnatal data underestimated size parameters, but demonstrated similar growth rate constants ( k ) to an exclusively postnatal model. However, when growth parameters were broken out, the absolute growth rate ( G ) and rate of growth decay ( g ) decreased (0.44 from 0.27 and 0.55 from 0.39, respectively), which underscores the importance of reporting k in its expanded form ( G / g ). Although the Gompertz fits most age classes well, it cannot explain growth in all age classes. We argue that a novel sigmoidal model would be more useful for inference.