Wednesday, July 09, 2025

 

The underwater Caprera Canyon, off the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, is a hotspot of whale and dolphin diversity




PLOS
The Caprera Canyon (north–eastern Sardinia): A hotspot of cetacean diversity in the western Mediterranean Sea 

image: 

A striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba) leaping in the Caprera Canyon.

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Credit: Luca Bittau / SEAME Sardinia, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)





The underwater Caprera Canyon, off the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, is a hotspot of whale and dolphin diversity

Article URLhttp://plos.io/4458aP5

Article title: The Caprera Canyon (north–eastern Sardinia): A hotspot of cetacean diversity in the western Mediterranean Sea

Author countries: Italy

Funding: This study was part of the research projects “I Cetacei pelagici nella Sardegna nord-orientale: una biorisorsa prioritaria per il Parco Nazionale Arcipelago di La Maddalena e il Parco Marino Internazionale delle Bocche di Bonifacio” of the University of Sassari, and “Progetto cetacei del Canyon di Caprera” of SEA ME Sardinia (www.seame.it), which is still ongoing. This work was funded by the One Ocean Foundation (www.1ocean.org), in the form of financial support to SEA ME Sardinia for research, educational and dissemination activities. The research was also funded by UNEP SPA/RAC (www.rac-spa.org) through CIMA Foundation (www.cimafoundation.org), Fondazione di Sardegna, and La Maddalena Archipelago National Park (www.lamaddalenapark.it), which provided financial support to University of Sassari (CUP J82I15000310005). University of Sassari provided grants for LB and MCL. SEA ME Sardinia provided financial support in the form of salary for LB, ML and EF. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ’author contributions’ section. One Ocean Foundation provided assistance and support in the proofreading and submission process, but had no role in study design, data collection and analysis. The other funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, or preparation of the manuscript.


The Caprera Canyon (north–eastern Sardinia): A hotspot of cetacean diversity in the western Mediterranean Sea 

Maps showing location of the cetacean sightings off north–eastern Sardinia, throughout the study period (2011–2019) scaled by group size. The nearby national/international parks are shown in light grey, and the Pelagos Sanctuary as a dotted area. Data shown in the maps are based on 1110 sightings, both ‘on–effort’ and ‘off–effort’. Striped dolphin (n = 604); Fin whale (n = 244); Cuvier’s beaked whale (n = 149); Common bottlenose dolphin (n = 79); Sperm whale (n = 15); Risso’s dolphin (n = 10); Common dolphin (n = 8) and Sowerby’s beaked whale (n = 1).

Credit

Bittau et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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