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Oceanographic drivers of population differentiation in Indo-Pacific bottlenose (Tursiops aduncus) and humpback (Sousa spp.) dolphins of the northern Bay of Bengal

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Abstract

The Bay of Bengal is one of the most productive ecosystems in the northern Indian Ocean and it harbours a rich community of cetaceans, including Indo-Pacific bottlenose (Tursiops aduncus) and humpback (Sousa spp.) dolphins. The taxonomy of these genera has been controversial, but within the Indian Ocean both seem to be divided into phylogenetically discrete units that range from the east to the west. Within the Sousa genus, S. plumbea is distributed in the western Indian Ocean while S. chinensis is distributed in the eastern Indian and western Pacific Ocean. T. aduncus has a discontinuous distribution throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean and two different phylogenetic units are known to exist, one along the eastern African coast and another one in the eastern Indian and west Pacific Ocean. In this study we investigate the phylogeography of Indo-Pacific humpback and bottlenose dolphins in the northern Bay of Bengal. We sequenced the mitochondrial DNA control region for 17 bottlenose and 15 humpback dolphins and compared the results with previously published sequences within each genus. In both cases, we found that Bangladesh dolphins are genetically different from neighbouring populations. While the Bangladesh T. aduncus seem to be more closely related to the African T. aduncus form than the Pacific form, Sousa spp. seem to be more closely related to individuals from Australia. The genetic uniqueness of these populations has important evolutionary implications, due to their isolation, coastal distribution in a geographic cul-de-sac characterized by an extreme infusion, redistribution and recycling of biological productivity, and conservation implications since their survival is threatened in particular by fatal interactions with fisheries. We suggest that the particular and extreme oceanographic conditions found in the Bay of Bengal may be driving speciation in these dolphins and other marine megafauna.

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Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the dedicated effort of WCS field assistants and our research boat crew especially Musa Kalimullah. Samples for this study were collected under permit from the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Bangladesh. We are grateful to Mr. Yunus Ali, Chief Conservator of Forest, Bangladesh, for his help with obtaining the CITES export permit for the skin samples used in this study as well as the NMFS Marine Mammals Health and Stranding Response Program for their assistance. Funding for this work was provided by the IWC Small Cetacean Conservation Fund Awarded and Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Hong Kong to BDS and HCR. We thank Dr. Paolo Agnelli, Mammals Collection Manager at the Natural History Museum, Zoological Section “La Specola”, University of Florence, Florence, Italy for access to the Andaman specimen and Kelly Robertson (SWFSC) for extracting and sequencing this specimen. A.R. Amaral is supported by a Grant (SFRH/BPD/79002/2011) from the Portuguese Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street and Central Park West, New York, NY, 10024, USA

    Ana R. Amaral & Howard C. Rosenbaum

  2. Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ana R. Amaral

  3. Wildlife Conservation Society, Ocean Giants Program, 2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY, 10460, USA

    Brian D. Smith, Rubaiyat M. Mansur & Howard C. Rosenbaum

  4. NOAA Fisheries, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, 34500 Highway 1, Monterey, CA, 93940, USA

    Robert L. Brownell Jr.

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  1. Ana R. Amaral
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Correspondence to Ana R. Amaral.

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Amaral, A.R., Smith, B.D., Mansur, R.M. et al. Oceanographic drivers of population differentiation in Indo-Pacific bottlenose (Tursiops aduncus) and humpback (Sousa spp.) dolphins of the northern Bay of Bengal. Conserv Genet 18, 371–381 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-016-0913-7

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