Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range
Identification of phenotypic characteristics in reproductively successful individuals provides important insights into the evolutionary processes that cause range shifts due to environmental change. Female beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) from the Baffin Bay region (BB) of the Canadian Arctic i...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:8668808 2023-05-15T15:09:39+02:00 Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range Ferguson, Steven H. Yurkowski, David J. Hudson, Justine M. Edkins, Tera Willing, Cornelia Watt, Cortney A. 2021-11-23 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8668808/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34938510 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8668808/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34938510 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 © 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Ecol Evol Research Articles Text 2021 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 2021-12-26T01:30:27Z Identification of phenotypic characteristics in reproductively successful individuals provides important insights into the evolutionary processes that cause range shifts due to environmental change. Female beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) from the Baffin Bay region (BB) of the Canadian Arctic in the core area of the species’ geographic range have larger body size than their conspecifics at the southern range periphery in Hudson Bay (HB). We investigated the mechanism for this north and south divergence as it relates to ovarian reproductive activity (ORA = total corpora) that combines morphometric data with ovarian corpora counted from female reproductive tracts. Our study aim was to assess the relative influence of age and body size of female beluga whale on ORA in the two populations. Female beluga whale ORA increased more quickly with age (63% partial variation explained) in BB than in HB (41%). In contrast, body length in HB female beluga whales accounted for considerably more of the total variation (12% vs. 1%) in ORA compared to BB whales. We speculate that female HB beluga whale ORA was more strongly linked with body length due to higher population density resulting in food competition that favors the energetic advantages of larger body size during seasonal food limitations. Understanding the evolutionary mechanism of how ORA varies across a species’ range will assist conservation efforts in anticipating and mitigating future challenges associated with a warming planet. Text Arctic Baffin Bay Baffin Bay Baffin Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas Hudson Bay PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Baffin Bay Hudson Hudson Bay Ora ENVELOPE(7.517,7.517,62.581,62.581) Ecology and Evolution 11 23 17314 17322 |
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Research Articles |
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Research Articles Ferguson, Steven H. Yurkowski, David J. Hudson, Justine M. Edkins, Tera Willing, Cornelia Watt, Cortney A. Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
topic_facet |
Research Articles |
description |
Identification of phenotypic characteristics in reproductively successful individuals provides important insights into the evolutionary processes that cause range shifts due to environmental change. Female beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) from the Baffin Bay region (BB) of the Canadian Arctic in the core area of the species’ geographic range have larger body size than their conspecifics at the southern range periphery in Hudson Bay (HB). We investigated the mechanism for this north and south divergence as it relates to ovarian reproductive activity (ORA = total corpora) that combines morphometric data with ovarian corpora counted from female reproductive tracts. Our study aim was to assess the relative influence of age and body size of female beluga whale on ORA in the two populations. Female beluga whale ORA increased more quickly with age (63% partial variation explained) in BB than in HB (41%). In contrast, body length in HB female beluga whales accounted for considerably more of the total variation (12% vs. 1%) in ORA compared to BB whales. We speculate that female HB beluga whale ORA was more strongly linked with body length due to higher population density resulting in food competition that favors the energetic advantages of larger body size during seasonal food limitations. Understanding the evolutionary mechanism of how ORA varies across a species’ range will assist conservation efforts in anticipating and mitigating future challenges associated with a warming planet. |
format |
Text |
author |
Ferguson, Steven H. Yurkowski, David J. Hudson, Justine M. Edkins, Tera Willing, Cornelia Watt, Cortney A. |
author_facet |
Ferguson, Steven H. Yurkowski, David J. Hudson, Justine M. Edkins, Tera Willing, Cornelia Watt, Cortney A. |
author_sort |
Ferguson, Steven H. |
title |
Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
title_short |
Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
title_full |
Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
title_fullStr |
Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
title_full_unstemmed |
Larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
title_sort |
larger body size leads to greater female beluga whale ovarian reproductive activity at the southern periphery of their range |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8668808/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34938510 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(7.517,7.517,62.581,62.581) |
geographic |
Arctic Baffin Bay Hudson Hudson Bay Ora |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Baffin Bay Hudson Hudson Bay Ora |
genre |
Arctic Baffin Bay Baffin Bay Baffin Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas Hudson Bay |
genre_facet |
Arctic Baffin Bay Baffin Bay Baffin Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas Hudson Bay |
op_source |
Ecol Evol |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8668808/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34938510 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 |
op_rights |
© 2021 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8367 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
11 |
container_issue |
23 |
container_start_page |
17314 |
op_container_end_page |
17322 |
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1766340799145967616 |