There was a negative exponential 

 relationship between first semester stranding rates 

 and the preceding December-January mean sea 

 surface temperature. The lowest January- 

 December mean sea surface temperatures 

 preceded the highest January-June stranding 

 incidence, 124 strandings in 1987, and 189 in 1990 

 (Table 6). Regression of log-transformed 

 January-June stranding totals (logS) against the 

 corresponding log- transformed December-January 

 mean sea surface temperatures (logT) resulted in 

 the following statistically significant (P = 0.02, N 

 = 5) relationship: logS = 5.4 - 2.951ogT, r^ = 

 0.89 (Figure 5). A weak (r^ = 0.65) relationship 

 between dolphin strandings and air temperature 

 for the same periods was not significant (P = 

 0.10). 



S 



1.00 



1.05 



1.10 1.15 



LOG TCMPERATURE 



1.20 



1.25 



Figure 5. Relationship between Dec -Jan tea surface 

 te mpera ture and Jan-Jun strandings on Tocas coast. 

 1986-1990. LogY - 539 - 2.95 log X r^ - 0.89, P - 

 0.02. 



Sea surface temperature anomaly data from NOAA's Oceanographic Monthly 

 Summary for December 1989-January 1990 ranged from -0.4 to -2.0 °C. The monthly 

 temperature means upon which these anomalies are based are the data from the Robinson, 

 Bauer and Schroeder (1979) climatologies. Because of the historical nature of the 

 climatology, these data should be considered qualitative; however, the persistence of the 

 negative anomaly throughout the winter of 1989-90 suggests that sea surface temperatures 

 were abnormaUy low. 



Salinity 



Mean salinity varied significantly among months (Table 4), among years (Table 5), 

 and among months within years (Table 9); however, there was no significant relationship 

 between bottlenose dolphin stranding and sahnity (r^ < 0.01, P = 0.99). 



Table 9. Monthly mean salinity (ppt) by year along Texas Gulf Coast. Values with the same letters were not signiPicantly 

 different (SNK test, • - 0.05, A - highest value, E - lowest value). 



40 



