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Prevalence of skull pathologies in European harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) during 1981–2014

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Abstract

Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) inhabit the seas surrounding Denmark and are an important top predator in the marine food chain. This trophic position exposes them to environmental contaminants with disease epidemics and hunting being additional threats to this population. It is therefore important to study how environmental pollution at the current order of magnitude affects the health of the population. Earlier studies have shown that occurrence of periodontitis could be linked to the amount of pollution the seals were subjected to. In order to investigate this further, 380 skulls and 141 mandibles of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) from the Wadden Sea, the Limfjord, and Kattegat collected during the period 1970–2014 were examined. The skulls were examined for pathological lesions. The Hounsfield Units (HU) which are correlated to the bone mineral density (BMD) were measured in a subsample (n = 34) using CT scans. The macroscopic examination revealed (with the exception of the Swedish part of Kattegat) a significant increase of pathological lesions over the study period of 1981–2014. The examination of HU showed that median HU measured at multiple sites was highest in the healthy skulls compared to the skulls with one or more of the lesions. A discriminant analysis allowed high discriminatory capacity to separate healthy skulls from the skulls with pathologies, simply by the utilization of the HU data. Former studies of BMD in marine mammals have shown that exposure to environmental chemicals alter BMD and cause periodontitis. The present study, based on temporal and spatial trends in BMD, confirms the results of previous studies.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Aalborg Zoo Conservation Foundation for supporting this study. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Stockholm, Sweden), the Natural History Musem of Denmark (Copenhagen, Denmark), and the Fisheries and Maritime Museum (Esbjerg, Denmark). Finally, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for invaluable suggestions and help.

Funding

The study was funded by the local financing body and the BONUS BaltHealth has received funding from BONUS (Art. 185), funded jointly by the EU, Innovation Fund Denmark (grants 6180-00001B and 6180-00002B), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant FKZ 03F0767A), Academy of Finland (grant 311966) and Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA) (C. Sonne, M. T. Olsen, T. Härkönen, K.C. Harding and R. Dietz).

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  1. Cino Pertoldi and Lasse Fast Jensen contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Biology and Esnvironmental Science, Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7H, DK, 9220, Aalborg East, Denmark

    Cino Pertoldi, Lasse Fast Jensen, Trine Bæk Pedersen & Trine Hammer Jensen

  2. Aalborg Zoo, Mølleparkvej 63, DK, 9000, Aalborg, Denmark

    Cino Pertoldi & Trine Hammer Jensen

  3. Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, Nørrebrogade 44, 10C, DK, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Aage Kristian Olsen Alstrup & Ole Lajord Munk

  4. Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Bioscience, Arctic Research Centre (ARC), Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, PO Box 358, DK, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark

    Christian Sonne, Rune Dietz & Tobias Daugaard-Petersen

  5. Department of Veterinary Clinical and Animal Sciences, Dyrlægevej 16,, DK, 1870, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Hanne Ellen Kortegaard

  6. Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5-7, DK, 1350, Copenhagen K, Denmark

    Morten Tange Olsen

  7. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Gothenburg University, Box 461, SE, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Karin Charlotte Hårding

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  1. Cino Pertoldi
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  2. Lasse Fast Jensen
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Correspondence to Cino Pertoldi.

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Communicated by: Karol Zub

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Pertoldi, C., Jensen, L.F., Alstrup, A.K.O. et al. Prevalence of skull pathologies in European harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) during 1981–2014. Mamm Res 63, 55–63 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-017-0340-2

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