Assessing cetacean body condition: Is total lipid content in blubber biopsies a useful monitoring tool?
Abstract
Measuring the energy stores, or body condition, of cetaceans is vital for monitoring population health. Cetaceans are exposed to a range of anthropogenic stressors, including, for example, noise, contaminants, habitat degradation, reduced prey availability, ship strike, and entanglement. Tools to assess body condition in these inaccessible and vulnerable animals are required to better understand the energetic consequences of anthropogenic stressors that can impact population health and, ultimately, conservation status.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 10.1002/aqc.3105
Entities
People
- Ailsa J. Hall
- Andrew Brownlow
- Christian A. Ramp
- Joanna L Kershaw
- Patrick J O Miller
Organizations
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program
- University of St Andrews