The juvenile life stage is both an extremely vulnerable and formative time for bottlenose dolphins. In the years between weaning and maturity, bottlenose dolphins face many risks and must learn to navigate a complex ecological and social landscape in order to survive and become successful adult members of the Sarasota area population. The focus of [...]

One of the objectives of my dissertation project is to evaluate the definition of a group for the bottlenose dolphin and to examine how dolphins communicate with each other during the formation and division of groups. I am currently working on the data analysis of 107 focal animal behavioral follows and 10 sound transmission experiments [...]

Bottlenose dolphins have evolved complex foraging specializations to detect and pursue prey. Individual preference plays a role in the use of foraging specializations and may be shaped in response to habitat or variation in prey resources. Foraging specializations may be products of cultural transmission, and the long duration of the mother-calf bond presents an ideal [...]

This past summer I defended my Ph.D. thesis from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Biological Oceanography. I spent four summers on Sarasota Bay collecting data on the behavior of male dolphins in the Sarasota community. Male dolphins form stable, long-term alliances comparable to long-term relationships formed by terrestrial species. The goal of this [...]

In December 2003, I completed my dissertation through the Ocean Sciences Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz under the guidance of Dr. Randall Wells. The focus of my research was to understand why adult male dolphins form pair-bonds. These pair-bonds are extremely strong, second only among the Sarasota dolphins to mothers and calves [...]