Metabolism of ingested lipids by North Atlantic right whales
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 6:259-271 (2009) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00163 Metabolism of ingested lipids by North Atlantic right whales Zachary T. Swaim1,2, Andrew J. Westgate1,2, Heather N. Koopman1,2,*, Rosalind M. Rolland3, Scott D. Kraus3 1University of North Carolina Wilmington, 601 S. College Rd., Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, USA 2Grand Manan Whale and Seabird Research Station, Grand Manan, New Brunswick E5G 1A1, Canada 3New England Aquarium, Central Wharf, Boston, Massachusetts 02110, USA *Corresponding author: Email: koopmanh@uncw.edu ABSTRACT: North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis feed predominantly on Calanus finmarchicus Stage V copepods. Calanus possesses 2 classes of storage lipids, triacylglycerols (TAG) and wax esters (WE), the latter comprising 94% of total lipids. Most mammals are incapable of metabolizing WE and thus eliminate it in their feces. The objective of this study was to determine whether right whales are capable of metabolizing both TAG and WE. We compared the lipid composition of copepods collected during plankton tows (n = 64) over 2 summers (2006 and 2007) with the lipid composition of 24 right whale fecal samples collected synoptically in the Bay of Fundy. Using ingestion and defecation models, we estimated that an average right whale (40000 kg) ingests ~58000 g of WE d–1 but eliminates only 250 g of WE, implying that right whales are assimilating over 99% (57765 g) of dietary WE. Lipids in the feces differed significantly from those of the diet. Copepod lipids were dominated by saturated fatty acid (FA) components 14:0 (14.73 ± 0.32 wt%) and 16:0 (8.99 ± 0.20 wt%), with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated components comprising the remainder. Long chain monounsaturated 20:1n-9 and 22:1n-11 dominated the fatty alcohol composition of copepods. Fecal lipid composition consisted primarily of saturated FA, many of which were absent in the copepods. These data suggest that right whales have evolved an unusual metabolic capability, such as specialized enzymatic machinery or a gut symbiont, which, unlike other mammals, enables them to utilize most of their WE-rich diet. KEY WORDS: Eubalaena glacialis · Right whale · Lipid metabolism · Wax ester · Triacylglycerol · Calanus finmarchicus · Copepod · Feeding Full text in pdf format PreviousNextCite this article as: Swaim ZT, Westgate AJ, Koopman HN, Rolland RM, Kraus SD (2009) Metabolism of ingested lipids by North Atlantic right whales. Endang Species Res 6:259-271. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00163 Export citation Mail this link - Contents Mailing Lists - RSS Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 6, No. 3. Online publication date: February 04, 2009 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2009 Inter-Research.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".