Potential endocrine correlation with exposure to domoic acid in Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) at the Península Valdés breeding ground.

Autor: D'Agostino VC; Centro Para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR), CCT CENPAT, CONICET, Blvd. Brown 2915, U9120ACV, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina. dagostino@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar., Fernández Ajó A; Geospatial Ecology of Marine Megafauna Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Oregon State University, 2030 SE Marine Science Dr, Newport, OR, 97365, USA. fernaale@oregonstate.edu.; Instituto de Conservación de Ballenas, Capital Federal, O'Higgins 4380, 1429, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina. fernaale@oregonstate.edu., Degrati M; Centro Para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos (CESIMAR), CCT CENPAT, CONICET, Blvd. Brown 2915, U9120ACV, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina.; Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia, San Juan Bosco, Blvd. Brown 3150, U9120ACV, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina., Krock B; Alfred Wegener Institut-Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Chemische Ökologie, Am Handelshafen 12, 27570, Bremerhaven, Germany., Hunt KE; George Mason University and Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation, 1500 Remount Rd, Front Royal, VA, 22630, USA., Uhart MM; Southern Right Whale Health Monitoring Program, Los Alerces 3376, U9120ACV, Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina.; Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, 1089 Veterinary Medicine Drive, VM3B Ground Floor, Davis, CA, 95616, USA., Buck CL; Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, 617 S. Beaver St, PO Box 5640, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Oecologia [Oecologia] 2022 Jan; Vol. 198 (1), pp. 21-34. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Nov 20.
DOI: 10.1007/s00442-021-05078-4
Abstrakt: In waters off Península Valdés (PV), Argentina, southern right whales (SRW, Eubalaena australis) are occasionally exposed to domoic acid (DA), a neurotoxin produced by diatoms of the genus Pseudo-nitzschia. Domoic acid toxicity in marine mammals can cause gastrointestinal and neurological clinical signs, alterations in hematologic and endocrine variables, and can be fatal in extreme cases. In this study, we validated an enzyme immunoassay to quantify fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCm) in 16 SRW fecal samples from live and dead stranded whales in PV from 2013 to 2018 and assessed fGCm levels associated with DA exposure. Overall, fGCm levels were significantly lower in SRWs with detectable fecal DA (n = 3) as compared to SRWs with undetectable fecal DA levels (n = 13). The highest fecal DA was observed in a live lactating female, which had low fGCm compared to the other lactating females studied. The highest fGCm was observed in a lactating female with undetectable DA; interestingly, at the time of sample collection, this female was sighted with two calves, an extremely unusual occurrence in this species. Though the sample size of these exceptionally rare breeding-season fecal samples was unavoidably small, our study provides evidence of potential adrenal alterations in whales exposed to an environmental neurotoxin such as DA.
(© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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