Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale
Following the sudden appearance, and subsequent efforts to support the survival of a beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) speculated to have been previously trained off the coast of Norway, we investigate the animal’s ability to readapt to life in the wild. Dietary DNA (dDNA) analysis was used to as...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9018719 2023-05-15T15:41:39+02:00 Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale Günther, Babett Jourdain, Eve Rubincam, Lindsay Karoliussen, Richard Cox, Sam L. Arnaud Haond, Sophie 2022-04-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018719/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018719/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . CC-BY Sci Rep Article Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 2022-04-24T00:45:46Z Following the sudden appearance, and subsequent efforts to support the survival of a beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) speculated to have been previously trained off the coast of Norway, we investigate the animal’s ability to readapt to life in the wild. Dietary DNA (dDNA) analysis was used to assess diet throughout this rehabilitation process, and during a return to unassisted foraging and self-feeding. Metabarcoding of feces collected throughout this process, confirmed the diversification of the beluga whale’s diet to local prey. These findings are indicative of improved foraging behavior, and the ability of this individual to resume wild foraging following a period of dependency in managed care. New insight of digestion rates, and the time window during which prey detection through dDNA analysis is appropriate was also obtained. Beyond the case study presented here, we demonstrate the power of dDNA analysis as a non-intrusive tool to assess the diet of large mammals and track progress adapting to life in the wild following release from captivity and rehabilitation programs. Text Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas PubMed Central (PMC) Norway Scientific Reports 12 1 |
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Article Günther, Babett Jourdain, Eve Rubincam, Lindsay Karoliussen, Richard Cox, Sam L. Arnaud Haond, Sophie Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
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Article |
description |
Following the sudden appearance, and subsequent efforts to support the survival of a beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) speculated to have been previously trained off the coast of Norway, we investigate the animal’s ability to readapt to life in the wild. Dietary DNA (dDNA) analysis was used to assess diet throughout this rehabilitation process, and during a return to unassisted foraging and self-feeding. Metabarcoding of feces collected throughout this process, confirmed the diversification of the beluga whale’s diet to local prey. These findings are indicative of improved foraging behavior, and the ability of this individual to resume wild foraging following a period of dependency in managed care. New insight of digestion rates, and the time window during which prey detection through dDNA analysis is appropriate was also obtained. Beyond the case study presented here, we demonstrate the power of dDNA analysis as a non-intrusive tool to assess the diet of large mammals and track progress adapting to life in the wild following release from captivity and rehabilitation programs. |
format |
Text |
author |
Günther, Babett Jourdain, Eve Rubincam, Lindsay Karoliussen, Richard Cox, Sam L. Arnaud Haond, Sophie |
author_facet |
Günther, Babett Jourdain, Eve Rubincam, Lindsay Karoliussen, Richard Cox, Sam L. Arnaud Haond, Sophie |
author_sort |
Günther, Babett |
title |
Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
title_short |
Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
title_full |
Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
title_fullStr |
Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
title_full_unstemmed |
Feces DNA analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
title_sort |
feces dna analyses track the rehabilitation of a free-ranging beluga whale |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018719/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas |
genre_facet |
Beluga Beluga whale Beluga* Delphinapterus leucas |
op_source |
Sci Rep |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9018719/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09285-8 |
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Scientific Reports |
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12 |
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1 |
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