Marine Mammal Ecotoxicology: Impacts of Multiple Stressors on Population Health

Marine Mammal Ecotoxicology: Impacts of Multiple Stressors on Population Health assists researchers and those in relevant disciplines with developing a comprehensive methodology for the study of the threats of marine mammals combined with a conservation-biology approach to new and emerging and technologies. As apex predators, marine mammals feed at or near the top of the food chain, with levels of anthropogenic contaminants found in top predator and long-living species tissues typically high, with effects of exposure to multiple stress and pollutants in the marine environment seen at multiple levels of the ecosystem. This work helps provide crucial knowledge about the status of marine mammal populations to understand the ecosystem's health and to instigate mitigation measures for their conservation. This knowledge can be exploited in hot spot areas where different species can serve as sentinels of marine environmental quality at different times during the annual cycle. Chapters also provide critical information on organisms that have relatively long lifespans (such as cetaceans), allowing for the study of chronic diseases including reproductive failure, abnormalities in growth and development, and cancer. The application of robust examination procedures and biochemical, immunological, and microbiological techniques, combined with pathological examination and behavioral analysis, has led to the development of health assessment methods at the individual and population levels in wild marine mammals. This volume provides information on these dynamic tools to further help investigators unravel the relationships between exposures to environmental multiple stressors (e.g. climate change, pollutants, marine litter, pathogens, biotoxins) and a range of disease endpoints in marine mammal species as an indicator of ecosystems health. Provides a comprehensive update and state of knowledge on the current research and topics on marine mammal ecotoxicology worldwideIncludes coverage of new and emerging and technologiesFeatures a multidisciplinary nature that enables the reader to have a broad, updated overview on threats facing marine mammals and related conservation measures INDICE: PART 1. Legacy and emerging contaminants in marine mammal populations 1. Organochlorine contaminants and reproductive implication in cetaceans Paul Jepson, Robin Law 2. Heavy metals exposure in Odontocetes Gregory Bossart 3. Oil pollution and cetaceans: a particular insight on the Deep-water Horizon oil spill Teresa Rowles, Gina Ylitalo, Lori Schwacke 4. Legacy contamination in estuarine dolphin species from the South American coast Salvatore Siciliano and other colleagues 5. Perfluorinated compounds in dolphins Patricia Fair and colleagues 6. Marine debris interaction with marine mammals Maria Cristina Fossi, Cristina Panti, Sara Baulch 7. Contamination in hot spot areas: the Mediterranean Sea Assuncion Borrell, Begona Jimenez, Letizia Marsili

• ISBN: 9780128121443
• Editorial: Academic Press
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 416
• Fecha Publicación: 01/08/2018
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés