2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Dolphins and porpoises

Brief description

The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "State and Trend of dolphins and porpoises".
***A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - Dolphins and Porpoises"***

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DESCRIPTION OF TAXONOMIC GROUP FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT
Following taxonomic standards, 20 dolphin species in the Family Delphinidae and one species in the Family Phocoenidae are known to occur in Australian waters (Table 1). A number of these species (e.g. common dolphins, Delphinus delphis) are distributed nationally, others are restricted to particular latitudes (e.g. dusky dolphin, Lagenorhychus obscurus) and others consist of populations that are highly restricted to embayments and tributaries within particular regions (e.g. the endemic Australian snubfin dolphin, Orcaella heinsohni).
Since the 2016 State of the Environment (SoE) report further insights into the spatial distribution of Australian snubfin dolphin (Blue Planet Marine 2019, Bouchet et al. 2021), Australian humpback dolphins (Sousa sahulensis; Parra and Cagnazzi 2015, Hanf et al. 2016, Hunt et al. 2017; Raudino et al. 2018a, Raudino et al. 2018b, Blue Planet Marine 2019, Burns et al. 2019, Hunt et al. 2020), Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus, Raudino et al. 2018a, Blue Planet Marine 2019, Burns et al. 2019, Haughey et al. 2020), common dolphins (Delphinus delphis, Mason et al. 2016) and orca (Orcinus orca, Jones et al. 2019, Salgado-Kent et al. 2020) have been established.

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT
Assessment based on review of literature published since the 2016 SoE assessment – see references for spatial and temporal coverage of data incorporated into assessments.

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2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• 2021 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Unclear
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are comparable to the 2016 assessment
• 2016 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Unclear
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Comparability: Grade and trend are somewhat comparable to the 2011 assessment
• 2011 •
Assessment grade: Good
Assessment trend: Stable
Confidence grade: Limited evidence or limited consensus
Confidence trend: Limited evidence or limited consensus

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CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT
Assessment has not changed.

Lineage

Statement: QUALITY OF DATA USED IN THE ASSESSMENT
Assessment based on review of literature published since the 2016 SoE assessment – see references for an overview and assessment of the quality of data incorporated into assessments.

Notes

Credit
Peer reviews of this assessment was provided by: Trent Timmiss (AFMA)