Schnitzler, JG;
Pinzone, M;
Autenrieth, M;
van Neer, A;
Ijsseldijk, LL;
Barber, JL;
Deaville, R;
... Siebert, U; + view all
(2018)
Inter-individual differences in contamination profiles as tracer of social group association in stranded sperm whales.
Scientific Reports
, 8
, Article 10958. 10.1038/s41598-018-29186-z.
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Abstract
Ecological and physiological factors lead to different contamination patterns in individual marine mammals. The objective of the present study was to assess whether variations in contamination profiles are indicative of social structures of young male sperm whales as they might reflect a variation in feeding preferences and/or in utilized feeding grounds. We used a total of 61 variables associated with organic compounds and trace element concentrations measured in muscle, liver, kidney and blubber gained from 24 sperm whales that stranded in the North Sea in January and February 2016. Combining contaminant and genetic data, there is evidence for at least two cohorts with different origin among these stranded sperm whales; one from the Canary Island region and one from the northern part of the Atlantic. While genetic data unravel relatedness and kinship, contamination data integrate over areas, where animals occured during their lifetime. Especially in long-lived animals with a large migratory potential, as sperm whales, contamination data may carry highly relevant information about aggregation through time and space.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Inter-individual differences in contamination profiles as tracer of social group association in stranded sperm whales |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-018-29186-z |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29186-z |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creative commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Animal behaviour, Marine biology, Marine mammals |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10068747 |
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