TY - JOUR
T1 - Potential endocrine correlation with exposure to domoic acid in Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) at the Península Valdés breeding ground
AU - D’Agostino, Valeria C.
AU - Fernández Ajó, Alejandro
AU - Degrati, Mariana
AU - Krock, Bernd
AU - Hunt, Kathleen E.
AU - Uhart, Marcela M.
AU - Buck, C. Loren
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the PICT-2018-02550 grant from the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (MINCYT, Argentina) and the PADI Foundation to Dr. V. C. D’Agostino. Funding for the hormone assays came through AZ-TRIF and Northern Arizona University to Dr. C. L. Buck. V. C. D’Agostino was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) of Argentina and by a mobility grant of the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren through the research program PACES of the Alfred Wegener Institut-Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung and the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme through the Action–IMCONet (FP7 IRSES, Action No. 319718).
Funding Information:
This study would not have been possible without the help of Pablo Fioramonti, Diego Moreno, Claudio Nicollini, Alexis Fioramonti, Fernando Varsky, Ernesto Ricci, Rodrigo Picco, Cristian Campos, Miguel Bottazzi and Daniel Casielles. We extend our gratitude to Mr. Pinino Orri. We also thank the whale watch companies Whales Argentina, Southern Spirit, Hydrosport, Bottazzi and Peke Sosa for logistic support in the field. Permits were granted by Direcci?n de Fauna y Flora Silvestre and Subsecretar?a de Conservaci?n y ?reas Protegidas of Chubut Province, Argentina. We thank Danielle Dillion and Thomas Max for helping with lab work, and A. Carolina Giese for statistics consultations. Finally, we greatly appreciate the thoughtful and encouraging comments from three anonymous reviewers and from the handling editor and the editor in chief.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/1
Y1 - 2022/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Fecal hormones
KW - Glucocorticoids
KW - Phycotoxin
KW - Validations
KW - Wildlife health
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85119279786&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00442-021-05078-4
DO - 10.1007/s00442-021-05078-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 34800166
AN - SCOPUS:85119279786
SN - 0029-8549
VL - 198
SP - 21
EP - 34
JO - Oecologia
JF - Oecologia
IS - 1
ER -