The Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI) is a research and educational centre dedicated to the understanding and conservation of cetaceans and the marine environment in which they live. The Institute's BDRI centre was founded by the biologist Bruno Díaz López in Sardinia, Italy in 2005. In 2014, the BDRI opened a new facility in Galicia, Spain.
BDRI concentrates its efforts on research into dolphins because as predators, they can serve as indicators of the ecosystem’s health. The BDRI researches ways to alleviate threats to dolphins such as marine pollution, over-fishing, entanglement in nets, and whaling.
BDRI research projects
BDRI research projects provide scientific data to assist environmental agencies in managing and conserving marine natural resources.
- Cetacean distribution along Galician coast: Current studies by the BDRI highly focus on cetacean species frequenting the inshore waters of the outer Arousa Firth, however, a new area like Galician coastal waters (north-west Spain) are characterized by high biodiversity and productive fisheries, supported by nutrient input due to upwelling. Twenty species of cetaceans have been recorded in Galician waters, of which the most abundant appear to be short-beaked common dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. Other species present in the area include harbour porpoises, Risso's dolphins and long-finned pilot whale. Conservation issues for cetaceans in Galician waters include interactions with fisheries, which may be a significant cause of mortality, overfishing, and oil spills.
- Behavioural ecology of dolphins and impact of human activities on their lives: Much of the research work is based upon repeat observations of individually-recognisable dolphins, providing data for a range of long-term and ongoing studies on the abundance, site fidelity, home range, social structure and behaviour of this population. The study of dolphins social structures defines an important class of ecological relationships between individuals and their nearby conspecifics. Common bottlenose dolphins live in fission–fusion societies within which individuals associate in small groups that change in composition, often on a daily or hourly basis. Fission–fusion societies limit the effect of within-unit competition through unit splits during periods of high competition, and they enhance cooperative effects through unit cohesion when the ecological costs of aggregating are low or benefits of sociality are high. Human activities can influence the distribution of food resources, which may promote the evolution of social organizations as a response to fluctuations in the costs of feeding competition. Therefore, fission–fusion societies present a good opportunity to examine the costs and benefits of association in dolphin populations affected by human use of coastal waters, especially by fisheries activities and habitat modification.
Individual-based studies focusing explicitly the variability of social unit structure in relation to anthropogenic factors are few. BDRI researchers studied interactions between dolphins and gillnets along the north-eastern coast of Sardinia (Italy). Although dolphins benefit from taking fish entangled in gillnets, the association with gillnets is harmful because it exposes dolphins to additional risk. An observed annual estimate of the number of dolphins caught in gillnets was 3.54%. The extent of the estimated by-catch is worrisome in terms of the ability of bottlenose dolphins off Sardinia to sustain such an annual loss. The higher annual numbers of immature dolphins than adults dolphins caught in gillnets was related with a lack of experience together with and the tendency of immatures to play and/or to spend a lot of time scouting.