Age determination of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) using dental radiography pulp:tooth area ratio measurements

Herrman, Jean M.; Morey, Jeanine S.; Takeshita, Ryan; De Guise, Sylvain; Wells, Randall S.; McFee, Wayne; Speakman, Todd; Townsend, Forrest; Smith, Cynthia R.; Rowles, Teresa; Schwacke, Lori

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242273

Advanced Search

Select up to three search categories and corresponding keywords using the fields to the right. Refer to the Help section for more detailed instructions.

Search our Collections & Repository

Advanced Search
Custom Query

All these words:

For very narrow results

This exact word or phrase:

When looking for a specific result

Any of these words:

Best used for discovery & interchangable words

None of these words:

Recommended to be used in conjunction with other fields

Language:

Dates

Publication Date Range:

to

Document Data

Title:

Document Type:

Library

Collection:

Series:

People

Author:

Clear All

Query Builder

Query box

Clear All

For additional assistance using the Custom Query please check out our Help Page

i

Age determination of common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) using dental radiography pulp:tooth area ratio measurements

2020
By Herrman, Jean M. ; Morey, Jeanine S. ; Takeshita, Ryan ; ...
Source: PLOS ONE, 15(11), e0242273

[PDF-1.94 MB]

Details Supporting Files You May Also Like

Details:

Journal Title:

PLOS ONE
Personal Author:

Herrman, Jean M. ; Morey, Jeanine S. ; Takeshita, Ryan ; De Guise, Sylvain ; Wells, Randall S. ; ... More +

Herrman, Jean M. ; Morey, Jeanine S. ; Takeshita, Ryan ; De Guise, Sylvain ; Wells, Randall S. ; McFee, Wayne ; Speakman, Todd ; Townsend, Forrest ; Smith, Cynthia R. ; Rowles, Teresa ; Schwacke, Lori Less -
NOAA Program & Office:

NOS (National Ocean Service) ; NCCOS (National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science) ; NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; OPR (Office of Protected Resources)

NOS (National Ocean Service) ; NCCOS (National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science) ; NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; OPR (Office of Protected Resources) Less -
Description:

Age is an important parameter to better understand wildlife populations, and is especially relevant for interpreting data for fecundity, health, and survival assessments. Estimating ages for marine mammals presents a particular challenge due to the environment they inhabit: accessibility is limited and, when temporarily restrained for assessment, the window of opportunity for data collection is relatively short. For wild dolphins, researchers have described a variety of age-determination techniques, but the gold-standard relies upon photo-identification to establish individual observational life histories from birth. However, there are few populations with such long-term data sets, therefore alternative techniques for age estimation are required for individual animals without a known birth period. While there are a variety of methods to estimate ages, each involves some combination of drawbacks, including a lack of precision across all ages, weeks-to-months of analysis time, logistical concerns for field applications, and/or novel techniques still in early development and validation. Here, we describe a non-invasive field technique to determine the age of small cetaceans using periapical dental radiography and subsequent measurement of pulp:tooth area ratios. The technique has been successfully applied for bottlenose dolphins briefly restrained during capture-release heath assessments in various locations in the Gulf of Mexico. Based on our comparisons of dental radiography data to life history ages, the pulp:tooth area ratio method can reliably provide same-day estimates for ages of dolphins up to about 10 years old.
Keywords:

[+]

Age Bottlenose Dolphins
Source:

PLOS ONE, 15(11), e0242273
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242273
ISSN:

1932-6203
Publisher:

Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Rights Information:

CC0
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

[+]

urn:sha256:f6e6d27ff64a2881f7d00f2c7822c4717c476eb230c5de9db0653856f4807bae
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/50696/noaa_50696_DS1.pdf
File Type:

	Machine readable version (XML)	xml
	Available dataset	htm

More +