Lipid Status of Gray Whales Eschrichtius robustus in the Piltun Feeding Area
- PDF / 555,424 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 70 Downloads / 108 Views
RAL BIOLOGY
Lipid Status of Gray Whales Eschrichtius robustus in the Piltun Feeding Area M. S. Mamaeva, S. A. Murzinab, S. N. Pekkoevab, V. P. Voroninb, and Academician V. V. Rozhnova, * Received March 20, 2020; revised April 22, 2020; accepted April 22, 2020
Abstract—For the first time, the relationship of lipid and fatty acid composition with individual, gender and age characteristics of the gray whale Eschrichtius robustus in the Piltun feeding area is shown using the methods of biochemical analysis.
Keywords: western gray whales, lipids, fatty acids DOI: 10.1134/S0012496620040043
Western gray whales (the western subpopulation of gray whales [1] or the Okhotsk–Korean population) inhabit the northern part of the water area of Asian Pacific coast [2]. Until the discovery of a group of individuals in the area off the north-east coast of Sakhalin Island in 1983 [3], they were considered extinct. Currently, western gray whales are listed in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation in category 1 “endangered” [4] and in the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature in the category “endangered” [1]. One of the main periods in the life cycle of gray whales is feeding migrations. During the breeding season and a long migration to the feeding areas, whales do not feed, using reserves of subcutaneous fat as an energy source, and come to the feeding areas in the Sea of Okhotsk, mainly off the northeastern coast of Sakhalin, in an exhausted state. Whales begin to come to Sakhalin in late May–June; in July–August, their number here is the highest. Their main feeding area is the Piltun feeding area [5], a shallow water area at the confluence of Piltun Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk. For almost the entire summer period, whales feed and often stay in the same places. The confinement of individuals and their groups to specific feeding grounds is primarily associated with a stable high biomass of feeding objects, among which planktobenthic organisms, amphipods, and isopods dominate in the a A.N.
Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia b Institute of Biology, Karelian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russia *e-mail: [email protected]
Piltun feeding area [6]. In the short feeding period, due to active feeding, the proper amount of fat reserves is accumulated in the whale body, which ensures energy-consuming metabolic reactions and processes, including those of the reproductive period in the following winter [7, 8]. The migration of whales to their wintering sites begins at the end of September. It is known [9] that the blubber lipid composition directly reflects the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the animal’s food base. The lipid status of the body, as one of the integrated indicators of metabolism, allows us to characterize the physiological state of both individuals and the whole population. The study of the fatty acid profile of the skin and blubber layer, with particular attention to biomarker fatty acids and the
Data Loading...
