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The relationship between lag and anthropogenic and animal-related variables was evaluated with generalized additive models. For franciscana dolphins, breathing synchrony was only positively related to the proximity between animals.
Synchronous breathing may be a useful proxy for studying other, and perhaps more complex, aspects of cetacean behavior. Here we describe a study conducted in Babitonga Bay, southern Brazil, where we investigated the synchrony of breathing in two small populations of franciscana ( Pontoporia blainvillei) and Guiana dolphins ( Sotalia guianensis). The bay is affected by different sources of anthropogenic disturbances, such as boat activity and point‐source pollution. We assumed breathing synchrony to be the inverse of the time between breathing surfacing displays of dolphins within a swimming pair, which we refer to as lag.
The relationship between lag and anthropogenic and animal‐related variables was evaluated with generalized additive models. For franciscana dolphins, breathing synchrony was only positively related to the proximity between animals.
Breathing synchrony in Guiana dolphins was positively related to both the proximity between animals and to group size, and varied significantly depending on the research boat used. Proximal characteristics ( i.e., of individuals or of the group) of these dolphin species seem to be more related to the synchronization in breathing than are the environmental variables assessed here.
Results presented expand the current knowledge of these two dolphin species and provide general insights into the breathing synchrony for cetaceans. The following supporting information is available for this article online at. FilenameDescription300.1 KBTable S1.
Selected model outputs for franciscanas and Guiana dolphins. Smooth functions knots locations were automatic selected using “runSALSA1D” function (MRSea R package).Figure S1. (A) Synchronous pair of franciscana. Only the two animals on the left are considered a surfacing pair, following the criteria described in the text (Photograph: Projeto Toninhas/Univille); (B) Synchronous pair of Guiana dolphin (Photograph: Karina Actis).Figure S2.
Relative frequency of the distance between animals in the focal pair for Guiana dolphin and franciscana. (D0 = animals in physical contact with each other, D1 = up to one body length apart; D2 = between 1 and 10 body lengths apart and D3 = more than 10 body lengths apart).Figure S3. Histogram of the distribution of absolute frequencies of lag for pairs of Guiana dolphins (A) and for franciscana dolphins (B).Figure S4. Auto‐correlation plots for the residuals of selected models for Guiana (A) and franciscana dolphins (B).Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.