Search results for "Cetacean."

Sometimes Sperm Whales (Physeter macrocephalus) Cannot Find Their Way Back to the High Seas: A Multidisciplinary Study on a Mass Stranding

2011

BackgroundMass strandings of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) remain peculiar and rather unexplained events, which rarely occur in the Mediterranean Sea. Solar cycles and related changes in the geomagnetic field, variations in water temperature and weather conditions, coast geographical features and human activities have been proposed as possible causes. In December 2009, a pod of seven male sperm whales stranded along the Adriatic coast of Southern Italy. This is the sixth instance from 1555 in this basin.Methodology/principal findingsComplete necropsies were performed on three whales whose bodies were in good condition, carrying out on sampled tissues histopathology, virology, bacter…

Parasites in Stranded Cetaceans of Patagonia

2008

There is an increasing interest in parasites of marine mammals of Argentina. Here, we examined several poorly known cetaceans, i.e., 2 spectacled porpoises and 1 Burmeister's porpoise (Phocoenidae), and 1 Gray's beaked whale and 1 Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphidae); we also updated the parasite information for 1 sperm whale (Physeteridae). These hosts strand only occasionally. We found Anisakis simplex s.l. in 2 spectacled porpoises and the Burmeister's porpoise, and recorded its distribution among the stomach chambers. Anisakis physeteris infected the sperm whale; Corynosoma cetaceum occurred in the duodenal ampulla of the Burmeister's porpoise; Corynosoma australe was found in the posterior…

Competition between marine mammals and fisheries in contemporary harvested marine ecosystems

2019

Competitive interactions between marine mammals and fisheries represent some of the most complex challenges in marine resource management worldwide. The development of commercial fisheries and recovering marine mammal populations have contributed to a decrease in fish availability. Whilst ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) can counteract this decrease, achieving the EBFM objectives faces certain major obstacles including insufficient or unreliable data, inapplicable assessment models, as well as inadequate management decisions that do not account for fisheries-induced morphological alterations (FIMA) and marine mammal management. Despite a body of evidence addressing various aspect…

Cetacean presence and distribution in the central Mediterranean Sea and potential risks deriving from plastic pollution

2021

Abstract The Sardinian and Sicilian Channels are considered hotspots of biodiversity and key ecological passages between Mediterranean sub-basins, but with significant knowledge gaps about marine mammal presence and potential threats they face. Using data collected between 2013 and 2019 along fixed transects, inter and intra-annual cetacean index of abundance was assessed. Habitat suitability, seasonal hot spots, and risk exposure for plastic were performed using the Kernel analysis and the Biomod2 R-package. 661 sightings of 8 cetacean species were recorded, with bottlenose and striped dolphins as the most sighted species. The north-eastern pelagic sector, the coastal waters and areas near…

Dieta del delfín de Risso (Grampus griseus) en el Mediterráneo occidental

2006

The diet of Risso’s dolphin in the Mediterranean is described based on 15 animals stranded between 40°25’N 00°32’W and 37°35’N 00°45’E from April 1987 to January 2003. The prey were mainly oceanic cephalopods. Pelagic octopods, especially A. argo, were the most abundant (mean = 41.28%; SD±34.32). Species belonging to the families Ommastrephidae, Histioteuthidae and Onychoteuthidae were also frequent components of its diet. The bathymetric distribution of cephalopods shows that Risso’s dolphin preferentially feeds on the middle slope (600 to 800 m depth) in the Mediterranean.

An insight into the epidemiology of dolphin morbillivirus worldwide.

2001

Serum samples from 288 cetaceans representing 25 species and originating from 11 different countries were collected between 1995 and 1999 and examined for the presence of dolphin morbillivirus (DMV)-specific antibodies by an indirect ELISA (iELISA) (N=267) or a plaque reduction assay (N=21). A total of 35 odontocetes were seropositive: three harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and a common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) from the Northeastern (NE) Atlantic, a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) from Kent (England), three striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), two Risso’s dolphins (Grampus griseus) and a bottlenose dolphin from the Mediterranean Sea, one common dolphin from the Southwes…

Habitat modeling for cetacean management: Spatial distribution in the southern Pelagos Sanctuary (Mediterranean Sea)

2017

International audience; Effective management and conservation of wild populations requires knowledge of their habitats, especially by mean of quantitative analyses of their spatial distributions. The Pelagos Sanctuary is a dedicated marine protected area for Mediterranean marine mammals covering an area of 90,000km2 in the north-western Mediterranean Sea between Italy, France and the Principate of Monaco. In the south of the Sanctuary, i.e. along the Sardinian coast, a range of diverse human activities (cities, industry, fishery, tourism) exerts several current ad potential threats to cetacean populations. In addition, marine mammals are recognized by the EU Marine Strategy Framework Direct…

Cetacean Morbillivirus: Current Knowledge and Future Directions

2014

We review the molecular and epidemiological characteristics of cetacean morbillivirus (CeMV) and the diagnosis and pathogenesis of associated disease, with six different strains detected in cetaceans worldwide. CeMV has caused epidemics with high mortality in odontocetes in Europe, the USAand Australia. It represents a distinct species within the Morbillivirusgenus. Although most CeMV strains are phylogenetically closely related, recent data indicate that morbilliviruses recovered from Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), from Western Australia, and a Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis), from Brazil, are divergent. The signaling lymphocyte activation molecule (SLAM) cell rec…

Colmare il gap nelle competenze di bio-ricostruzione di scheletri di Cetacei in Sicilia

Phylogeny, epidemiology and microhabitat preferences of lungworms (Pseudaliidae) in cetaceans from teh Western Mediterranean

2023

A pesar de tener una cierta reputación negativa, los parásitos pueden ofrecer una información importante sobre sus hospedadores, habiendo sido reconocidos como herramientas valiosas en varios estudios que investigan el comportamiento (Balbuena y Raga 1991), la salud (Aznar et al. 2005; Gkafas et al. 2020), la dieta (Dailey y Otto 1982), la migración (Ten et al. 2022), la estructura social (Balbuena et al. 1995) o la discriminación de stocks de cetáceos (Aznar et al. 1995). Los helmintos que parasitan a los cetáceos se pueden separar en cuatro grupos distintos: acantocéfalos (20 spp.), cestodos (38 spp.), digeneos (54 spp.) y nematodos (62 spp.). De éstos, los nematodos son los más diversos …