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Variation of blubber thickness for three marine mammal species in the southern Baltic Sea

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift/Konferencebidrag i tidsskrift /Bidrag til avis › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › peer review

DOI

  • Ursula Siebert
  • Miguel L. Grilo, Institute of Applied Psychology
    • ,
  • Tina Kesselring, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover
    • ,
  • Kristina Lehnert, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover
    • ,
  • Katrin Ronnenberg, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover
    • ,
  • Iwona Pawliczka, University of Gdansk
    • ,
  • Anders Galatius
  • Line A. Kyhn
  • Michael Dähne, German Oceanographic Museum
    • ,
  • Anita Gilles, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover

Evaluating populational trends of health condition has become an important topic for marine mammal populations under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). In the Baltic Sea, under the recommendation of Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), efforts have been undertaken to use blubber thickness as an indicator of energy reserves in marine mammals. Current values lack geographical representation from the entire Baltic Sea area and a large dataset is only available for grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) from Sweden and Finland. Knowledge on variation of blubber thickness related to geography throughout the Baltic Sea is important for its usage as an indicator. Such evaluation can provide important information about the energy reserves, and hence, food availability. It is expected that methodological standardization under HELCOM should include relevant datasets with good geographical coverage that can also account for natural variability in the resident marine mammal populations. In this study, seasonal and temporal trends of blubber thickness were evaluated for three marine mammal species—harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) and harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)—resident in the southern Baltic Sea collected and investigated under stranding networks. Additionally, the effects of age, season and sex were analyzed. Seasonal variation of blubber thickness was evident for all species, with harbor seals presenting more pronounced effects in adults and grey seals and harbor porpoises presenting more pronounced effects in juveniles. For harbor seals and porpoises, fluctuations were present over the years included in the analysis. In the seal species, blubber thickness values were generally higher in males. In harbor seals and porpoises, blubber thickness values differed between the age classes: while adult harbor seals displayed thicker blubber layers than juveniles, the opposite was observed for harbor porpoises. Furthermore, while an important initial screening tool, blubber thickness assessment cannot be considered a valid methodology for overall health assessment in marine mammals and should be complemented with data on specific health parameters developed for each species.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer880465
TidsskriftFrontiers in Physiology
Vol/bind13
Antal sider12
ISSN1664-042X
DOI
StatusUdgivet - nov. 2022

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
The study was partly funded by the Ministry of Energy Transition, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalization of Schleswig-Holstein (MELUND) and the Federal Agency of Nature Conservation (Az Z 1.2-532 02/ANZ/2016/6). In Poland, collection of harbor porpoise carcasses and post-mortem analysis were funded by the European Regional Development Fund within the Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment in the project: Protection of marine mammals and seabirds and their habitats in Poland (contract no. POIŚ-02.04.00-00-021/16) and by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the statutory activity of the Prof. Krzysztof Skóra Hel Marine Station UG. In Denmark the collection of blubber thickness data was paid by the Ministry of Environment of Denmark. The analyses of the Schleswig-Holstein data were also partly supported by BONUS BALTHEALTH that has received funding from BONUS (Art. 185), funded jointly by the EU, Innovation Fund Denmark (Grants 6180-00001B and 6180-00002B), Academy of Finland (Grant 311966) and Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA). The stranding scheme and pathological investigations in Mecklenburg-Prepomerania are funded by the Landesamt für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Geologie (Contract Reg. Nr. 20.42117). This study received funding from Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH/German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant FKZ 03F0767A). The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication. This Open Access publication was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—491094227 “Open Access Publication Funding” and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation.

Funding Information:
The study was partly funded by the Ministry of Energy Transition, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalization of Schleswig-Holstein (MELUND) and the Federal Agency of Nature Conservation (Az Z 1.2-532 02/ANZ/2016/6). In Poland, collection of harbor porpoise carcasses and post-mortem analysis were funded by the European Regional Development Fund within the Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment in the project: Protection of marine mammals and seabirds and their habitats in Poland (contract no. POIŚ-02.04.00-00-021/16) and by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education within the statutory activity of the Prof. Krzysztof Skóra Hel Marine Station UG. In Denmark the collection of blubber thickness data was paid by the Ministry of Environment of Denmark. The analyses of the Schleswig-Holstein data were also partly supported by BONUS BALTHEALTH that has received funding from BONUS (Art. 185), funded jointly by the EU, Innovation Fund Denmark (Grants 6180-00001B and 6180-00002B), Academy of Finland (Grant 311966) and Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA). The stranding scheme and pathological investigations in Mecklenburg-Prepomerania are funded by the Landesamt für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Geologie (Contract Reg. Nr. 20.42117). This study received funding from Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH/German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Grant FKZ 03F0767A). The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication. This Open Access publication was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—491094227 “Open Access Publication Funding” and the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Siebert, Grilo, Kesselring, Lehnert, Ronnenberg, Pawliczka, Galatius, Kyhn, Dähne and Gilles.

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