IRES Track 1: The long-term impacts of extreme climate events on the behavioral ecology, fitness and population viability in wild bottlenose dolphins, Australia

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This International Research Experience for Students program will support at least three U.S. undergraduate and two U.S. graduate students each year (15 students in total) to collaborate with researchers in Australia to investigate the long-term impacts of an extreme marine heat wave on a population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) that has been studied since 1984. Students will conduct field work in Shark Bay, Western Australia (a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the highest vulnerability rating according to the Climate Change Vulnerability Index), and then wet-lab work at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Queensland, Australia). Students will use behavioral and genetic data to answer three questions regarding the dolphin population: 1) how does individual dolphin behavior change when their habitat is disrupted? 2) how does the individual’s social environment and foraging strategies affect their ability to respond to environmental change? and 3) how does habitat fragmentation affect genetic and social connectivity throughout the population? Students will gain computational, field and wet-lab skills from addressing these research topics, as well as policy skills and broad socio-cultural and biological perspectives on wildlife management from their collaborations with local stakeholders and government researchers. In this program students will be afforded a unique opportunity to study genotype-environment interactions in the wild, and bring back tools to apply to local conservation issues and wildlife management in the US.In this program students will be afforded a unique opportunity to study genotype-environment interactions among wild dolphins, studied since 1984, and their responses to an extreme climatic event in a global biodiversity hotspot. In 2011, the most extreme marine heat wave on record devastated the Shark Bay ecosystem, leading to a 90% reduction in foundational seagrass coverage, the collapse of local fisheries, and significant changes to the abundance and distribution of marine megafauna, including bottlenose dolphins. Shark Bay dolphins exhibit a diverse behavioral repertoire including tool use, multiple foraging tactics, highly differentiated social bonds, and distinct social and ecological phenotypes. This behavioral heterogeneity allows us to investigate the adaptive value of such traits in the decade before and after exposure to an extreme climate event. Student-led research will investigate the widespread impacts on the dolphin population, focusing on three areas of inquiry including fine-scale population structure, individual social and foraging behavior, and individual variation in reproductive success after the heatwave. Our long-term 37+ year database of behavioral, ecological, genetic, and demographic data will allow students to analyze baseline population dynamics, parameterize simulations, and develop hypotheses. Next, while in the field, undergraduate and graduate students will work together to collect data continuing a decade-plus assessment of the behavioral and fitness consequences of environmental disturbance. Participants will be trained by expert Australian collaborators in genetic data analysis and the study of genotype-environment interactions. Students will analyze population changes in the context of their impact on inbreeding potential, resource competition, social networks, and ultimate fitness consequences. The proposed integration of animal behavior and landscape genetics will advance our understanding of ecological and evolutionary principles by leveraging a natural experiment in rapid environmental change. This program affords a diverse group of students from the DC-metro area international research experience in meeting some of the biggest environmental challenges we currently face. By contrasting local systems with international systems facing different environmental conditions, managed by different governments, with distinct regional complexity, students will gain extensive insight into pressing conservation problems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.