OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Investigators: Dr. KC Bierlich, Dr. Leigh Torres, Dr. Scott Baker, Debbie Steel
Understanding the population structure of wildlife – how populations are divided and mix, or don’t mix, with each other – is critical for understanding their ecological role and identifying appropriate conservation and management strategies The population structure of gray whales across the North Pacific continues to be complicated, unresolved, and growing in importance for management decisions. The Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) of gray whales that the GEMM Lab has studied since 2015 through the GRANITE and TOPAZ projects is currently recognized by NOAA as a sub-group of the Eastern North Pacific (ENP) population of gray whales. Hence, no gray whale management in the U.S. is targeted at sustaining or protecting the PCFG despite differences between foraging habitats relative to the ENP, stagnant population growth for over 20 years, clear body size differences compared to the ENP, and evidence of negative impacts from several anthropogenic and environmental threats.
One method to describe population structure of wildlife units is through genetic assessment of reproductive mixing rates between groups of animals. Genetic analyses to inform gray whale management indicate that the ENP and PCFG have significantly different frequencies of mitochondrial DNA haplotypes, which reflects maternal recruitment to foraging grounds: calves from a PCFG mother are likely to also use the PCFG range. Yet, genetic analysis has detected no significant differences in nuclear DNA, which may indicate some level of reproductive mixing between these groups of whales or that nuclear DNA is not able to detect recent changes in population structure that have occurred since the PCFG established (estimated to be in the 1960s).
In close collaboration with the Center of Drone Excellence (CODEX) and the Cetacean Conservation and Genomics Lab in MMI, we are helping to fill this knowledge gap about the genetic relatedness of PCFG whales relative to the ENP, which will assist with important management decisions. Since our team aims to collect data and samples from marine animals in non- or minimally-invasive ways, we are working with CODEX to collect blow samples from gray whales using drones. The whales don’t notice the little drone carrying petri dishes hovering above their blowhole as they come to the surface to breathe, allowing us to collect samples of their mucous-filled blows for genetic analysis with no detectable impacts. A big win-win!
Our research goals include:
Confirm the Moms! - Develop sample collection and analysis methods, including validation of our approach by confirming maternity of known mother and calf pairs within the PCFG.
Find the Dads! - Genetically identify possible paternal matches to PCFG calves.
Who’s related? - Quantify the degree of relatedness among PCFG whales and determine kinship.
Do the genes matter? - Compare the genetic relatedness among ENP and PCFG gray whales to their morphology, behavior, and distribution patterns.
Funding:
