SGER: Blow-sampling: A non-invasive method for assessing diet, reproductive status and genetics in cetaceans

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Detailed knowledge concerning the diet, kinship, health, and hormonal status of top marine predators is critical to understanding basic cetacean biology, ecology, life history, and evolution, and can contribute substantially to management and conservation efforts. However, such information is extremely difficult to obtain without stressing, harming, and/or capturing animals. This study develops a new, non-invasive method (blow-sampling) that involves collecting fluid exhaled from the blowhole and will explore the full potential of this biological sample. The individual life histories, reproduction, behavior, genetics, and ecology of more than 1200 Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia have been monitored since 1984. In addition, five adults and their offspring visit a beach (Monkey Mia) daily to receive fish from humans. Blow samples collected daily from these individuals will be used to develop assays of reproductive states, relatedness and diets, which can then be applied to evaluate these variables in the larger population. In a 2008 pilot study 90 blow samples from provisioned and non-provisioned dolphins were collected and mtDNA (maternally inherited) was extracted from their blow. These samples will be used to identify reproductive state through hormones, diet through fatty acids, health through disease presence, and kinship through mtDNA and nuclear DNA, which can then be correlated with age, sex, behavior, reproductive patterns and survival. This innovative and non-invasive project will acquire much-needed data for improving dolphin welfare, and can potentially set a new standard for biological sampling of cetaceans.