NOTE: THIS IS ONLY A SAMPLE OF THE FINAL PRODUCT.

As of July 19, 2022, the data extraction for this review was still in progress. Not all articles have been coded and not all codes are presented here. Final results will be updated with publication (anticipated by the end of the year).

Primary Review Question: How has residency and site fidelity been defined conceptually and operationally in studies on odontocetes and what measures and methods have been used to evaluate each?

Background: Residency and site fidelity patterns have been described for numerous species of cetaceans worldwide but assessing residency in cetaceans is not a straightforward process. Studies are often constrained by time and resources available, ease of access to the targeted study area, and availability of the target species. As such, operational definitions, assessment strategies, and measures have varied widely, and quantitative metrics are uncommon. To date, there is no unifying conceptual approach to defining and assessing residency, begging the question - how does one adequately quantify residency in a biologically meaningful way? To address that, one must also ask – what exactly is ‘residency’? Discussion of residency in the literature can be found in terms of long-term occupancy, philopatry to a natal home range, and site fidelity, but each of these terms and measures come with additional variants in conceptual and operational definitions, and terminologies can be used interchangeably. Our purpose here was catalog the uses, definitions, and measures of residency across wide ranges of variables, such as species, methodology, scale, and measured outcomes. Here we provide an interactive, searchable database of our results.

Authors: Christina N. Toms, Josephine M. Slaathaug, Katherine A. McHugh, Reny B. Tyson Moore, and Randall S. Wells

Eligibility Criteria:

Population: All odontocetes excluding studies on extinct ancient species (i.e., species not in existence in the last 100 years)

Outcome: Targeting any study within the population of interest that seek to understand residency or site fidelity of odontocetes in their respective habitats. Articles were included if they met the following outcome criteria:

1. Offers a conceptual definition of residency (or related, e.g., transience), site-fidelity, occupancy, home range, or territory
2. Offers an operational definition of residency (or related, e.g., transience), site-fidelity, and/or occupancy
3. Measures or offers quantitative metrics for assessing residency (or related, e.g., transience) and/or site-fidelity
4. Describes or characterizes data in terms of residency patterns (or related, e.g., transience) or site-fidelity
   • Includes a paper that is a case study or purely descriptive, but information is presented in the framework of discussing residency or site-fidelity
   • Includes those offering a hypothesis of residency or high site-fidelity given the data presented
5. If the paper offers new or integrative conceptual framework for residency (or related, e.g., transience), site-fidelity, occupancy, home range, or territory

Instructions for navigating this live database:

To search, click on a code in the coding panel on the left-hand side and click on "List Records", or click on "Frequencies" for a parent code. You can also use the search bar at the top of the screen. One can also list the entire article set by clicking the "All Records" button in the upper right corner of the page. This view also offers an exportable reference list.

An updated final version will be generated for final publication and published at that time. For questions and updates, please contact: ctoms@mote.org