Explore the Depths of the Ocean: Oceanography and Its Benefits - Essay Sample

Introduction

Oceanography is the general study of the ocean, history, current state, and anticipated future conditions. It further explores the chemical, biological and physical features of the ocean. The knowledge from the oceanographers' real-time studies is very important when addressing oceanic problems such as coastline erosion, coastal climatic changes, and the risk of extinction of marine life species. The ocean is a habitat to diverse living organisms ranging from single-celled plankton to the largest animal on earth, the blue whale. Dolphins, saw-toothed cetaceans, easily decipherable by their smoothly rounded mouths, are part of this marine life. This paper seeks to discuss the dolphins' behavioral ecology, interaction with humans, and the human factors affecting the pelagic community.

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Dolphins are completely aquatic warm-blooded marine mammals: feeding chiefly on fish and squid, mating, and nurturing their calves in the water. The dolphins' ability to maintain very high swimming speeds of up to 18 miles per hour and to dive to greater depths of 10,000 feet makes them the utmost specialized mammalian swimmers (Parra et al., 2018). The tail is developed into parallel flukes and a streamlined body for faster propulsion. Furthermore, smooth skin, furless, and supple significantly lessens strain during swimming. However, the Amazon river dolphin defies the standard of streamlined. Dolphins generally breathe through nostrils when diving to the water surface by vehemently inhaling a lungful air, thus submerging up to 2 hours (Parra et al., 2018).

To date, there is an existence of 44 diverse species of dolphins, with bottlenose dolphins being the known and most common types of dolphins (Chiarello et al., 2017). There are two common classifications of dolphin: the short-beaked and the long-beaked, with the belief of a third class's existence (Parra et al., 2018). These common dolphins live in exceeding a large population of above four million, gather in clusters of over a thousand, and even swim with whale and other dolphin species (Parra et al., 2018). Although dolphins can be found in major water bodies all over the world, they have preferred homes. The two commonly known places are Bahamas and Patagonia, Argentina.

The Behavioral Ecology of the Commonly Known, Bottlenose Dolphins

Social Groups of Dolphins

Bottlenose dolphins live in mutable pods that long-term studies reveal variation in group composition. The individual members of pods dynamically associate in groups: they fuse or split within the same gathering several times a day (Pedersen et al., 2020). Some strong association exists between large mixed-sex groups within the society leading to the formation of societies. The female bottlenose dolphins usually form associations mostly to obtain food resources, and their alliance with males for reproduction and is short-lived (Chiarello et al., 2017). Generally, group size increases with water depth, strong social bonds, and the openness of habitat, which correlate with scavenging strategies and protection.

The dolphin males in Shark Bay, Australia, practice two strategies to ally to gain access to a female. The first strategy is creating a small and stable group of two to three to control specific females in reproductive condition (Pedersen et al., 2020). Secondly, the creation of a flexible and stable large super-alliance whose partners frequently switch their roles.

Social Hierarchies of Bottlenose Dolphin

Bottlenose dolphins show hostility, establish and maintain supremacy through blustering, biting, jaw-clapping, chasing, thrashing tails on the water, and impacting body slamming in the most severe cases. The traces of lateral light strips remain on dolphin's skin, have been virtually seen in all dolphin species (Chiarello et al., 2017). In Australia, a study was conducted on 285 bottlenose dolphins living around Shark Bay, revealed 83 percent of the observed population had tooth rake marks which were either recorded as new broken skin, visible white rakes, and weak evidence of rakes (Kovacs et al., 2017).

Dolphin Social Intelligence and Communication

The potential perceptive demands, such as the necessity to develop social tactics, recognizing a large number of individuals, and cohabitation, initiated the dolphin family's extreme brain size evolution. The large brain size development in mammals shared an ordinary discerning environment, intense mutual dependence established on external terrorizations from pillagers (Pedersen et al., 2020). Therefore, social competition and subsequent selection for superior mental abilities and large brain size were extreme. Similarly, the continuous growth of dolphin's intelligence intensified the keeping of these creatures in small tanks and imposing them to perform tricks under greater scrutiny (Pedersen et al., 2020).

Another fascinating fact about dolphins is that, like humans, they communicate using vocal and non-vocal signs. They mainly use the acoustic channel to communicate over long distances or in habitats with limited visibility (Pedersen et al., 2020). The bottlenose dolphins' vocal output includes whistles, clicks, and pulsing bursts of sound, with some whistles called "whistle signatures" that could be used to address each other (Kovacs et al., 2017). Finally, dolphins can detect prey using echolocation due to bouncing of sound waves off the prey, thus revealing its size, shape, and location.

Human Interaction with Dolphins

The attitude of the public towards aquatic mammals over the past decades worldwide has significantly changed. In the United States, marine life conservation became prevalent in 1972, instituting responsibility to the federal government to conserve and protect marine mammal species (Pedersen et al., 2020). Besides, emphasis on non-consumptive usage of marine increased, providing several ways for members of the public to view and interact with dolphins and whales.

Dolphins are sociable creatures, a characteristic that enhances their interaction with human beings. There are indicative behaviors of dolphins' long-lasting relations with human beings by accepting food gifts from people (Kovacs et al., 2017). Also, a form of nature tourism popularly enjoyed by many people is diving into the water to intermingle with free-ranging dolphins. Personally, the friendly characteristics of dolphins and the endless scenic adventures of the ocean are the most enjoyable things during my leisure time. Having been borne and raised in a coastal town and an avid fisherman passionately working on a boat, my passion, and a strong affinity for marine life conservation are in-depth.

The Threats to Dolphins and Human Factors Affecting the Pelagic Community

Although people hunted dolphins in the past for their lard and meat, the act has tremendously changed. The major threat to dolphins currently is being accidentally intertwined with commercial fishing nets, when recurrently rising to the water surface to inhale. As a result, they are drowned because of being entangled with the nets. Similarly, warming of ocean temperatures due to climatic changes poses a big challenge to Maine dolphins by causing their primary sources of food to migrate to the ocean's deeper cooler parts (Madin et al. 2016). Moreover, marine heatwaves greatly affect the ability to survive and the rate of reproduction.

Human activities such as the introduction of aggressive species, ocean acidification, overfishing, and the release of chemicals such as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) pollute the seas and oceans, thus imposing a devastating effect on marine ecosystems. Dolphin populations worldwide are the most affected by chemical effluence and marine wreckage (Madin et al. 2016). The contaminants which enter the marine from the industrial dumping, runoff, marine accidents, and sewage directly poison dolphins by damaging their immune and reproductive systems (Madin et al. 2016).

Conclusion

Dolphins are elegant, sleek swimmers, friendly and intelligent creatures. Regularly diving out of the water for; fun, communication, breathing, or even shedding irritating parasites. They live in stronger associations, the mutable pods, for mutual benefit and reproduction. Since they are sociable and intelligent creatures, humans can significantly benefit by keeping them small tanks and imposing them to perform tricks under greater scrutiny. However, human factors such as the release of chemicals, the introduction of hostile species, and overfishing among other pollutants cause imbalance in the ocean ecosystems, harming marine plants and animals, favors the flourishing of bacteria, which in turn disrupts the dolphin food chain. Therefore, there is a great need for marine life conservation and reduced pollutants release to the seas and oceans.

References

Chiarello, M., Villéger, S., Bouvier, C., Auguet, J. C., & Bouvier, T. (2017). Captive bottlenose dolphins and killer whales harbor a species-specific skin microbiota that varies among individuals. Scientific reports, 7(1), 1-12. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-15220-z

Kovacs, C., Perrtree, R. & Cox, T. (2017). Social differentiation in common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) that engage in human-related foraging behaviors. PloS one, 12(2), e0170151. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170151

Madin, E., Dill, L., Ridlon, A., Heithaus, M., & Warner, R. (2016). Human activities change marine ecosystems by altering predation risk. Global Change Biology, 22(1), 44-60. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26448058/

Parra, G., Cagnazzi, D., Jedensjö, M., Ackermann, C., Frere, C., Seddon, J., ... & Krützen, M. (2018). Low genetic diversity, limited gene flow and widespread genetic bottleneck effects in a threatened dolphin species, the Australian humpback dolphin. Biological Conservation, 220, 192-200. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717316117?via%3Dihub#!

Pedersen, M., Fahlman, A., Borque-Espinosa, A., Madsen, P., & Jensen, F. (2020). Whistling is metabolically cheap for communicating with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Journal of Experimental Biology, 223(1). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31796610/