A software model estimating zones of impact on marine mammals around man-made noise [C. Erbe and D. M. Farmer, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 1327-1331 (2000)] is applied to the case of icebreakers affecting beluga whales in the Beaufort Sea. Two types of noise emitted by the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Henry Larsen are analyzed: bubbler system noise and propeller cavitation noise. Effects on bel...

The swimming performance of hatchery-reared. juvenile shovelnose sturgeon Scaphirhynchus plarorynchus and pallld sturgeon S. albus was studied in a laboratory swim tunnel at 20°C and 1O0C. The mean 30-min critical swimming speed was not significantly different between species at either temperature (36.9 crd s for shovelnose sturgeon and 35.9 cm/s for pallid utur-geon at 20°C. 19.4 cmls for shov...

Although polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants are important organic contaminants in the tissues of marine mammals, including those species from the Arctic, there is exceedingly little direct evidence on congener-specific biotransformation. We determined and compared the in vitro metabolism of environmentally relevant PCB (4,4'-di-CB15, 2,3',...

Calcium regulation in sturgeon is of special interest because they are a representative of the ancient fishes possessing mainly cartilaginous skeletons and a supposedly low calcium demand. The present study aimed to characterize the effect of a chronic absence of dietary calcium and the effect of parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrPA) (1-34) (7) on calcium balance in juvenile sturgeon (Ac...

Beluga whale alphaherpesvirus 1 was isolated from a blowhole swab taken from a juvenile beluga whale. The genome is 144,144 bp in size and contains 86 putative genes. The virus groups phylogenetically with members of the genus Varicellovirus in subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae and is the first alphaherpesvirus sequenced from a marine mammal.

Exposure to chemical contaminants is often invoked to explain recruitment failures to populations of sturgeon worldwide, but there is little empirical evidence to support the idea that young sturgeon are sensitive at environmentally relevant concentrations. The authors used shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostum) and Atlantic sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus) as models to investigate the sensi...

Legally certified sturgeon fisheries require population protection and conservation methods, including DNA tests to identify the source of valuable sturgeon roe. However, the available genetic data are insufficient to distinguish between different sturgeon populations, and are even unable to distinguish between some species. We performed high-throughput single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-geno...

beluga sturgeon ( huso huso linnaeus, 1758) fingerlings are released into the caspian sea for recruiting and enhancing commercial and recreational fishing purposes. these fingerlings are reared in fresh water, but released to the estuaries that may be caused mortalities due to acute osmotic stress. in this study, the fingerlings in whole ( in vivo ) or their gill tissue ( in vitro ) were expose...

The AHR pathway activates transcription of CYP1A and mediates most toxic responses from exposure to halogenated aromatic hydrocarbon contaminants such as PCBs and PCDD/Fs. Therefore, expression of CYP1A is predictive of most higher level toxic responses from these chemicals. To date, no study had developed an assay to quantify CYP1A expression in any sturgeon species. We addressed this deficien...

Following a 7.5-h transport haul, juvenile pallid sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus) showed a small but significant increase in plasma cortisol to 4.7 ng ml but similar increases did not occur after fish were handled in a net held in the air for 30 s. Subsequent experiments on yearling pallid sturgeon and hybrid pallid×shovelnose (S. albus×platorynchus) sturgeon using the same 30-s handling stress...