Female body condition affects foetal growth in a capital breeding mysticete
By F. Christiansen, G. Víkingsson, M. Rasmussen, David Lusseau. 2014
92 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Summary: Understanding how female body condition (FBC) influences foetal development, and hence offspring production, is fundamental for our understanding of species reproductive physiology and life history. We investigated the effects of FBC on foetus growth in common minke whales. Pregnant minke whales were sampled around Iceland during the summer feeding seasons between 2003 and 2007 and the length and weight of their foetuses were measured. FBC was modelled as the relative difference between measured blubber volume and the average expected blubber volume of individual whales. Generalized linear models were used to test the effect of FBC on foetus length, while accounting for the daily growth in foetus size through gestation, as well as other covariates. Foetus length increased curvilinearly through the study period at an average rate of 0·964 cm day-1 (SE = 0·138). The effect of FBC on foetal length was nonlinear, showing an almost linear positive relationship for females in poorer body condition (FBC 0). The curvilinear relationship between FBC and foetus growth was confirmed by fitting a generalized additive model and by running separate analyses on two subsets of data separating females in poorer and better condition. Our findings suggest that females that are in poorer body condition reduce their energetic investment in their foetus proportionately to their condition, most likely to help maintain a high survival probability. That foetus length did not increase for females in better body condition suggests that females have an upper limit on the amount of energy they will or can invest in their foetus. Reducing the size at birth by reducing the gestation period is also unlikely, because the reproductive cycle of balaenopterids is strongly linked to their seasonal migration between feeding grounds and breeding grounds. This study is the first to demonstrate that FBC can affect foetus growth in a capital breeding mysticete.
Subfields: Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f931972cacf62e7adae37aa5652ebdac3c3f16c5
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
- F. Christiansen
- David Lusseau
- L. Bejder
- S. Dawson
- M. Sironi
- Carolyn A. Miller
- J. Durban
- H. Fearnbach
Citations in the corpus
- Noninvasive unmanned aerial vehicle provides estimates of the energetic cost of reproduction in humpback whales (2016, methodology): “The strong relationship between energy storage and reproduction in baleen whales (Lockyer 1987a, Williams et al. 2013, Christiansen et al. 2014) makes it possible to estimate the energetic costs of reproduction by investigating the rate of decline in the body condition of a population throughout…”
- Maternal body size and condition determine calf growth rates in southern right whales (2018, background): “Similarly, Christiansen et al. (2014) showed that foetal growth in minke whales was positively affected by maternal body condition.”
- Linking Behavior to Vital Rates to Measure the Effects of Non‐Lethal Disturbance on Wildlife (2015, background): “(Christiansen et al. 2014b): FBCImp=BVImp − BVCon BVCon (13) Christiansen et al. (2014b) estimated the relationship between female body condition and fetus length from scientifically caught minke whales.”
- Population comparison of right whale body condition reveals poor state of the North Atlantic right whale (2020, background): “In baleen whales, female body condition influences fecundity (Lockyer 2007, Williams et al. 2013), foetal growth (Christiansen et al. 2014) and calf body condition (Christiansen et al. 2016a).”