Dear Marmammers,
My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the following publication:
Simeone, C.A., Gulland, F.M.D., Norris, T., Rowles, T.K. 2015. A systematic
review of changes in marine mammal health in North America, 1972-2012: the need
for a novel integrated approach. PLOS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142105
The paper is available online via open-access PLOS ONE:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142105
<http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142105>
An abstract is below. Please feel free to forward any questions to
claire.sime...@noaa.gov <mailto:claire.sime...@noaa.gov>
ABSTRACT:
Marine mammals are often cited as “sentinels of ocean health” yet accessible,
synthesized data on their health changes that could effectively warn of ocean
health changes are rare. The objectives of this study were to 1) perform a
systematic review of published cases of marine mammal disease to determine
spatial and temporal trends in disease from 1972–2012, including changes in
regions and taxa affected and specific causes; and 2) compare numbers of
published cases of neoplasia with known, hospital-based neoplasia records to
explore the causes of discrepancy between numbers of published cases and true
disease trends. Peer-reviewed literature was compiled, and data were collected
from The Marine Mammal Center database in Sausalito, California for comparison
of numbers of neoplasia cases. Toxicoses from harmful algal blooms appear to be
increasing. Viral epidemics are most common along the Atlantic U.S. coastline,
while bacterial epidemics, especially leptospirosis, are most common along the
Pacific coast. Certain protozoal and fungal zoonoses appear to be emerging,
such as Toxoplasma gondii in southern sea otters in California, and
Cryptococcus gattii in cetaceans in the Pacific Northwest. Disease reports were
most common from California where pinniped populations are large, but increased
effort also occurs. Anthropogenic trauma remains a large threat to marine
mammal health, through direct mortality and indirect chronic disease. Neoplasia
cases were under-reported from 2003–2012 when compared to true number of cases,
and over-reported in several years due to case duplication. Peer-reviewed
literature greatly underestimates the true magnitude of disease in marine
mammals as it focuses on novel findings, fails to reflect etiology of
multifactorial diseases, rarely reports prevalence rather than simple numbers
of cases, and is typically presented years after a disease first occurs. Thus
literature cannot guide management actions adequately, nor inform indices of
ocean health. A real-time, nationally centralized system for reporting marine
mammal disease data is needed to be able to understand how marine mammal
diseases are changing with ecosystem changes, and before these animals can
truly be considered ‘sentinels of ocean health’.
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