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

  • Physiological ecology – original research
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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgements

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 Dirección de Fauna y Flora Silvestre and Subsecretaría de Conservación y Áreas 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.

Funding

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).

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VCD originally formulated the idea. VCD, MD and MMU did the fieldwork. VCD and AFA conducted sample extraction and data analyses. BK, KEH and CLB helped with analytical data in the laboratory. BK provided the funding for domoic acid extraction and MMU for dead whale sampling. AFA performed the fGCm validations, fGCm assays, and the statistical analyses. VCD and AFA wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed critically to the manuscript and gave final approval for publication.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Valeria C. D’Agostino or Alejandro Fernández Ajó.

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Additional information

Communicated by Joel Trexler .

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D’Agostino, V.C., Fernández Ajó, A., Degrati, M. et al. Potential endocrine correlation with exposure to domoic acid in Southern Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) at the Península Valdés breeding ground. Oecologia 198, 21–34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05078-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-05078-4

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