Species assignment of stranded pilot whales based on genetic markers.

<p>From mitochondrial D-Loop: online assignation with NCBI-BLAST <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069511#pone.0069511-Hall1" target="_blank">[17]</a> and DNA-Surveillance <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069511#pone.0069511-Ross1" target="_blank">[8]</a> software. From nuclear microsatellite loci: NewHybrids <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069511#pone.0069511-Rannala1" target="_blank">[28]</a>, GC2 GeneClass2 <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069511#pone.0069511-Excoffier1" target="_blank">[26]</a>, STRUCTURE 2.3.1 <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0069511#pone.0069511-Sanz1" target="_blank">[27]</a> (membership to a species in parenthesis).</p

Individual membership of pilot whale samples from the considered regions estimated with STRUCTURE software.

<p>Each vertical bar represents one individual. Membership to <i>G. macrorhynchus</i> in dark blue and to <i>G. melas</i> in light blue. The numbers identifying stranded individuals are indicated above the corresponding vertical bars; the Post-F1 hybrid is in red.</p

DNA markers of the stranded pilot whales analyzed.

<p>GenBank AN, accession number of the D-Loop sequence obtained for each whale, available at <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/" target="_blank">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/</a> Exclusive alleles of <i>G. melas</i> and <i>G. macrorhynchus</i> are marked in italics and bold respectively. Results were confirmed with a multi-tube method to validate the allele scores. The suspected hybrid (Galicia05) has private alleles of both species.</p

Temporal Shifts in Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs) in North Atlantic Pilot Whales Indicate Large Contribution of Atmospheric Precursors

Poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are persistent, bioaccumulative anthropogenic compounds associated with adverse health impacts on humans and wildlife. PFAS production changed in North America and Europe around the year 2000, but impacts on wildlife appear to vary across species and location. Unlike other mammal species, cetaceans lack the enzyme for transforming an important intermediate precursor (perfluorooctane sulfonamide: FOSA), into a prevalent compound in most wildlife (perfluorooctanesulfonate: PFOS). Thus, their tissue burden differentiates these two compounds while other mammals contain PFOS from both direct exposure and precursor degradation. Here we report temporal trends in 15 PFASs measured in muscle from juvenile male North Atlantic pilot whales (<i>Globicephala melas</i>) harvested between 1986 and 2013. FOSA accounted for a peak of 84% of the 15 PFASs around 2000 but declined to 34% in recent years. PFOS and long-chained PFCAs (C9–C13) increased significantly over the whole period (2.8% yr^–1 to 8.3% yr^–1), but FOSA declined by 13% yr^–1 after 2006. Results from FOSA partitioning and bioaccumulation modeling forced by changes in atmospheric inputs reasonably capture magnitudes and temporal patterns in FOSA concentrations measured in pilot whales. Rapid changes in atmospheric FOSA in polar and subpolar regions around 2000 helps to explain large declines in PFOS exposure for species that metabolize FOSA, including seafood consuming human populations. This work reinforces the importance of accounting for biological exposures to PFAS precursors

Mitochondrial and nuclear variability of reference samples.

<p>For the mitochondrial control region: AN, accession numbers in the GenBank; Nh, number of haplotypes; Hd, Haplotype diversity; Π, Nucleotide diversity. For the microsatellite loci: A, number of alleles; AR, mean allelic richness; Ho and He, observed and expected heterozygosity respectively per locus and population; F_IS, F_IS-value per locus and population. P-values were not significant in any case.</p

Mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenetic trees of the analyzed samples.

<p>Neighbour Joining trees reconstructed based on: A) mitochondrial D-Loop haplotypes; B) microsatellite loci genotypes. <i>G. macrorhynchus</i> is represented in dark blue and <i>G. melas</i> in light blue. Galician strandings are in black except the Post-F1 hybrid (Galicia05) that is in red. Bootstrapping is given for each node.</p

structure file Genome-wide SNP catalogue in Lagenorhynchus spp

Tab Separated Values File in "Structure" format. This file was used to run the software "Admixture". Missing data=0, A=1, C=2, G=3, T=4