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    New determination of prey and parasite species for Northern Indian Ocean blue whales

    Access Status
    Fulltext not available
    Authors
    de Vos, A.
    Faux, C.
    Marthick, J.
    Dickinson, J.
    Jarman, Simon
    Date
    2018
    Type
    Journal Article
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Citation
    de Vos, A. and Faux, C. and Marthick, J. and Dickinson, J. and Jarman, S. 2018. New determination of prey and parasite species for Northern Indian Ocean blue whales. Frontiers in Marine Science. 5 (APR).
    Source Title
    Frontiers in Marine Science
    DOI
    10.3389/fmars.2018.00104
    ISSN
    2296-7745
    School
    School of Molecular and Life Sciences (MLS)
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/71994
    Collection
    • Curtin Research Publications
    Abstract

    © 2018 de Vos, Faux, Marthick, Dickinson and Jarman. Blue whales are little studied, face significant anthropogenic threats and within the Northern Indian Ocean, have a restricted range, making them an archetype for conservation needs of megafauna around the world. We studied feeding behavior of blue whales using dietary DNA metabarcoding of fecal samples. While globally blue whale populations feed predominantly on Euphausiidae, 87% of prey DNA amplicons extracted from fecal samples from this population were sergestid shrimp, demonstrating that blue whales can locate and feed on dense swarms of other types of prey when they occur. Within the Indian Ocean sergestids are present within the top 300 m, which correlates with the deep scattering layer observed by hydroacoustics. Studies suggest that this requirement to dive deeper in search of prey likely explains the prevalence of fluke up diving within this population of blue whales relative to other parts of the globe. Furthermore, this study revealed the presence of acanthocephalan endoparasites within the stomach and intestines of the Northern Indian Ocean blue whales. This represents the first record of Acanthocephala in blue whales in the Northern Indian Ocean and highlights the need for further studies on both the ecto- and endoparasitic flora and monitoring of health of these cetaceans for their management and conservation.

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