By McGill College
Would possibly maybe maybe 28, 2022
Researchers can now accurately predict the diets of a ways away killer whale populations the utilization of their blubber fatty acids. Credit rating: Dr. Rune Dietz from Aarhus College
Unlocking the Secrets and suggestions of Killer Whale Diets and Their Role in Climate ChangeKiller whale populations are invading the Arctic, creating main disruptions to an ecosystem already severely impacted by climate commerce. A crew of researchers from McGill College has stumbled on unique clues to know the way killer whales impact their atmosphere – by reconstructing their diets the utilization of the lipids of their blubber.
“The spend of this diagnosis, we can better know how their diets commerce and how they’d maybe simply doubtlessly disrupt Arctic meals webs,” talked about Anaïs Remili, a PhD candidate at McGill’s Department of Natural Resource Sciences and lead author on the leer.
To reconstruct the whales’ diets, the researchers outdated a model called Quantitative Fatty Acid Signature Evaluation (QFASA) the utilization of samples from captive killer whales. Then they measured the fatty acid composition of the wild Greenland killer whales and doable prey species the whales might maybe maybe simply feed on. Finally, they utilized the modeling formula to estimate that the whales basically feed on harp and hooded seals, species that researchers label in about a of the whales’ stomachs.
This unique instrument has the doable to spice up knowing of the diets of killer whales spherical the sector, and how killer whales might maybe maybe simply impact Arctic meals webs in the end.
Reference: “Validation of quantitative fatty acid signature diagnosis for estimating the diet composition of free-ranging killer whales” by Anaïs Remili, Rune Dietz, Christian Sonne, Sara J. Iverson, Denis Roy, Aqqalu Rosing-Asvid, Haley Land-Miller, Adam F. Pedersen and Melissa A. McKinney, 13 Would possibly maybe maybe 2022, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-11660-4