Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea
The evolution of a permanent separation of the upper respiratory and digestive tract is one of the adaptions cetaceans evolved for their aquatic life. Generally, it prevents odontocetes from choking on either saltwater or foreign bodies during ingestion under water. Nevertheless, several sporadic si...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.10160 2024-06-02T08:07:47+00:00 Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea Gross, Stephanie Roller, Marco Haslob, Holger Grilo, Miguel Lakemeyer, Jan Reckendorf, Anja Wohlsein, Peter Siebert, Ursula Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature and Digitalization Schleswig-Holstein Agency for Coastal Defence, National Park and Marine Conservation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10160 https://peerj.com/articles/10160.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/10160.xml https://peerj.com/articles/10160.html en eng PeerJ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 8, page e10160 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2020 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10160 2024-05-07T14:14:36Z The evolution of a permanent separation of the upper respiratory and digestive tract is one of the adaptions cetaceans evolved for their aquatic life. Generally, it prevents odontocetes from choking on either saltwater or foreign bodies during ingestion under water. Nevertheless, several sporadic single case reports from different parts of the world show that this separation can be reversed especially by overly large items of prey. This incident can have a fatal outcome for the odontocetes. The German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has a year-round, permanent and systematic stranding network that retrieves stranded marine mammals from its shorelines and constantly enables post-mortem examinations. In 2016, with nine affected animals, a high incidence of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena ) occurred during spring and early summer on the German North Sea island of Sylt. All flatfish were identified as common sole ( Solea solea ). A retrospective post-mortem data analysis over a 30-year period from the North and Baltic Sea revealed similar yearly and seasonally case accumulations on the same island in the 1990s as well as several single case events over the whole timespan. All cases except one were caused by flatfish. When flatfish speciation was performed, only common sole was identified. From 1990 to 2019, of all examined harbour porpoises, 0.3% (2/713) from the Baltic Sea and 5.5% (45/820) from the North Sea died due to fish entrapped in the pharynx. On the North Sea coast, the occurrence of fatal obstruction shows high yearly variations from 0 to 33.3%. Years that stand out are especially 1990 to 1992, 1995, as well as 2016. The majority of all cases generally occurred between April and July, indicating also a seasonality of cases. This study evaluates the occurrence of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of fish in two geographically separated harbour porpoise populations. Additionally, common sole is clearly identified as a potentially risky item of prey for these ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 8 e10160 |
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English |
description |
The evolution of a permanent separation of the upper respiratory and digestive tract is one of the adaptions cetaceans evolved for their aquatic life. Generally, it prevents odontocetes from choking on either saltwater or foreign bodies during ingestion under water. Nevertheless, several sporadic single case reports from different parts of the world show that this separation can be reversed especially by overly large items of prey. This incident can have a fatal outcome for the odontocetes. The German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein has a year-round, permanent and systematic stranding network that retrieves stranded marine mammals from its shorelines and constantly enables post-mortem examinations. In 2016, with nine affected animals, a high incidence of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena ) occurred during spring and early summer on the German North Sea island of Sylt. All flatfish were identified as common sole ( Solea solea ). A retrospective post-mortem data analysis over a 30-year period from the North and Baltic Sea revealed similar yearly and seasonally case accumulations on the same island in the 1990s as well as several single case events over the whole timespan. All cases except one were caused by flatfish. When flatfish speciation was performed, only common sole was identified. From 1990 to 2019, of all examined harbour porpoises, 0.3% (2/713) from the Baltic Sea and 5.5% (45/820) from the North Sea died due to fish entrapped in the pharynx. On the North Sea coast, the occurrence of fatal obstruction shows high yearly variations from 0 to 33.3%. Years that stand out are especially 1990 to 1992, 1995, as well as 2016. The majority of all cases generally occurred between April and July, indicating also a seasonality of cases. This study evaluates the occurrence of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of fish in two geographically separated harbour porpoise populations. Additionally, common sole is clearly identified as a potentially risky item of prey for these ... |
author2 |
Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, the Environment, Nature and Digitalization Schleswig-Holstein Agency for Coastal Defence, National Park and Marine Conservation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Gross, Stephanie Roller, Marco Haslob, Holger Grilo, Miguel Lakemeyer, Jan Reckendorf, Anja Wohlsein, Peter Siebert, Ursula |
spellingShingle |
Gross, Stephanie Roller, Marco Haslob, Holger Grilo, Miguel Lakemeyer, Jan Reckendorf, Anja Wohlsein, Peter Siebert, Ursula Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
author_facet |
Gross, Stephanie Roller, Marco Haslob, Holger Grilo, Miguel Lakemeyer, Jan Reckendorf, Anja Wohlsein, Peter Siebert, Ursula |
author_sort |
Gross, Stephanie |
title |
Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
title_short |
Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
title_full |
Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
title_fullStr |
Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
title_full_unstemmed |
Spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( Phocoena phocoena) in the German North Sea |
title_sort |
spatiotemporal accumulation of fatal pharyngeal entrapment of flatfish in harbour porpoises ( phocoena phocoena) in the german north sea |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10160 https://peerj.com/articles/10160.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/10160.xml https://peerj.com/articles/10160.html |
genre |
Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena |
genre_facet |
Harbour porpoise Phocoena phocoena |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 8, page e10160 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10160 |
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PeerJ |
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8 |
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e10160 |
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1800752914784845824 |