Preliminary analysis of Risso's dolphin social structure in the Gulf of Taranto (Northern Ionian Sea, Central Eastern Mediterranean Sea)

The investigation into the social organization and population biology of cetaceans, as top predator and important sentinels of the health of the marine ecosystems, provides opportunities to study responses to anthropogenic disturbance and provides useful information for the development of conservation and management plans. Thus, in the present work the association pattern of 76 photo-identified individuals of Risso's dolphin sighted at least 5 times in the Gulf of Taranto, from July 2013 to September 2021, was analyzed to describe their population social structure, providing new important evidence for the conservation of the species. Indeed, even though most of our results seems to describe a fission fusion social structure, characteristic of a not isolated or socially segregated community, a certain degree of preferred association within individuals, sex and age classes supports the hypothesis of a more complex and structured society. Further studies are needed to investigate this scenario.