The Biopsychosocial Nature of Dolphins
A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Wildlife".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2026) | Viewed by 1822
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue on the biopsychosocial nature of dolphins covers a breadth of behavioral features of free-ranging dolphins, seeking to describe a “day in the life” of a free-ranging bottlenose dolphin, highlighting manifestations of feeding and food sharing, fission–fusion dynamics, reproductive and calf-rearing cycles, conflict and peacemaking, play, and inherent communications of aerial behaviors. Select indicators of greater social complexity are reviewed such as babysitting, self-decoration, and peacemaking, followed by anecdotes that provide glimpses of even greater social complexity, such as third-party intervention on behalf of a harassed calf, as opportunities for hypothesis generation. Field data collection techniques cover population and behavioral sampling with and without recognizing individual dolphins in the field, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of photo identification and drone work. This Special Issue considers data that can be gleaned from strandings, and reviews what is known about healing at sea without medical intervention against published claims of the exceptional healing abilities of dolphins.
I look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Ann Weaver
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- free-ranging dolphins
- social behavior
- social complexity
- social organization
- field data collection techniques
- strandings
- healing
- pollution
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