Ailsa Hall

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Verified

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• BSc(Hons), PhD FRSE OBE
• Professor Emeritus at University of St Andrews

Marine mammals rely on maintaining sufficient blood oxygen levels while diving to prevent drowning. Generally, oxygen is cognitively imperceptible to mammals that instead sense rising carbon dioxide as a proxy for low oxygen. Not perceiving oxygen, however, is risky for diving mammals. We argue that any ability to alter dives based upon direct perc...

Over 25% of cetacean species worldwide are listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Objective and widely applicable tools to assess cetacean health are therefore vital for population monitoring and to inform conservation initiatives. Novel blubber biomarkers of physiological st...

Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) can act as sentinel species reflecting the condition of the environment they inhabit. Our previous research identified strains of pathogenic Campylobacter and Salmonella, originating from both human and agricultural animal hosts, on rectal swabs from live grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) pups and yearlings on the Isle...

The aim of this study was to describe the pathology in seals from which Listeria monocytogenes was isolated and investigate if the lesions’ nature and severity were related to the phylogeny of isolates. L. monocytogenes was isolated from 13 of 50 (26%) dead grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) pups, six (12%) in systemic distribution, on the Isle ofMay,...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease and the primary cause of disability and dependency among elderly humans worldwide. AD is thought to be a disease unique to humans although several other animals develop some aspects of AD‐like pathology. Odontocetes (toothed whales) share traits with humans that suggest they may...

Assessing cumulative effects of human activities on ecosystems is required by many jurisdictions, but current science cannot meet regulatory demands. Regulations define them as effect(s) of one human action combined with other actions. Here we argue for an approach that evaluates the cumulative risk of multiple stressors for protected wildlife popu...

Plastic and plasticiser pollution of marine environments is a growing concern. Although phthalates, one group of plasticisers, are rapidly metabolised by mammals, they are found ubiquitously in humans and have been linked with metabolic disorders and altered adipose function. Phthalates may also present a threat to marine mammals, which need to rap...

Gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) can act as sentinel species reflecting the condition of the environment they inhabit. Our previous research identified strains of pathogenic Campylobacter and Salmonella, originating from both human and agricultural animal hosts, on rectal swabs from live gray seal (H. grypus) pups and yearlings on the Isle of May, S...

Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) can act as sentinel species reflecting the condition of the environment they inhabit. Our previous research identified strains of pathogenic Campylobacter and Salmonella, originating from both human and agricultural animal hosts, on rectal swabs from live grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) pups and yearlings on the Isle...

The harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) is the most widely distributed pinniped, occupying a wide variety of habitats and climatic zones across the Northern Hemisphere. Intriguingly, the harbour seal is also one of the most philopatric seals, raising questions as to how it colonized its current range. To shed light on the origin, remarkable range expansi...

Wildlife populations and their habitats are exposed to an expanding diversity and intensity of stressors caused by human activities, within the broader context of natural processes and increasing pressure from climate change. Estimating how these multiple stressors affect individuals, populations, and ecosystems is thus of growing importance. Howev...

Decades after a ban on hunting, and despite focused management interventions, the endangered St. Lawrence Estuary (SLE) beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) population has failed to recover. We applied a population viability analysis to simulate the responses of the SLE beluga population across a wide range of variability and uncertainty under current an...

Background Chlamydia-like organisms (CLO) have been found to be present in many environmental niches, including human sewage and agricultural run-off, as well as in a number of aquatic species worldwide. Therefore, monitoring their presence in sentinel wildlife species may be useful in assessing the wider health of marine food webs in response to h...

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill, a number of government agencies, academic institutions, consultants, and nonprofit organizations conducted lab- and field-based research to understand the toxic effects of the oil. Lab testing was performed with a variety of fish, birds, turtles, and vertebrate cell lines (as well as invertebrat...

Understanding the ecology and evolution of wildlife and domesticated species requires knowledge of their physiological responses to environmental change and the constraints under which they operate. However, whole animal experiments are often limited in sample size and can be logistically and ethically challenging. Culture techniques represent a po...

Excessive adiposity is associated with altered oxygen tension and comorbidities in humans. In contrast, marine mammals have high adiposity with no apparent detrimental effects. However, partial pressure of oxygen (Po2) in their subcutaneous adipose tissue (blubber) and its relationship with fatness have not been reported. We measured Po2 and temper...

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are endocrine disruptors that alter adipose tissue development, regulation and function. Top marine predators are particularly vulnerable because they possess large fat stores that accumulate POPs. However, links between endocrine or adipose tissue function disruption and whole animal energetics have rarely been...

Harmful algal bloom events are increasing in a number of water bodies around the world with significant economic impacts on the aquaculture, fishing and tourism industries. As well as their potential impacts on human health, toxin exposure from harmful algal blooms (HABs) has resulted in widespread morbidity and mortality in marine life, including...

Climate change has resulted in physical and biological changes in the world's oceans. How the effects of these changes are buffered by top predator populations, and therefore how much plasticity lies at the highest trophic levels, are largely unknown. Here endocrine profiling, longitudinal observations of known individuals over 15 years between 200...

Preventing declines in common species is key to sustaining the structure and function of marine ecosystems. Yet for many common marine mammals, including oceanic dolphins, statistical power to detect declines remains low due to patchy distribution and large variability in group sizes. In this study, population viability analyses (PVA) were used to...

Simple Summary Wild California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) have a high prevalence of urogenital carcinoma. The cancer starts in the sea lion’s genital tract then spreads aggressively to other organs resulting in death. Previous research has identified a herpesvirus, otarine herpesvirus 1 (OtHV1), in the genital tract of most sea lions with u...

Monitoring the body condition of free-ranging marine mammals at different life-history stages is essential to understand their ecology as they must accumulate sufficient energy reserves for survival and reproduction. However, assessing body condition in free-ranging marine mammals is challenging. We cross-validated two independent approaches to est...

The prevalence of cancer in wild California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) is one of the highest amongst mammals, with 18–23% of adult animals examined post-mortem over the past 40 years having urogenital carcinoma. To date, organochlorines, genotype and infection with Otarine herpesvirus-1 (OtHV-1) have been identified in separate studies usin...

Metapopulation theory assumes a balance between local decays/extinctions and local growth/new colonisations. Here we investigate whether recent population declines across part of the UK harbour seal range represent normal metapopulation dynamics or are indicative of perturbations potentially threatening the metapopulation viability, using 20 years...

Pregnancy status in harbour seals can be estimated from concentrations of progesterone in blubber as well as in blood samples, which are significantly higher in pregnant than non-pregnant animals. This study investigated the accuracy of estimating pregnancy rates using samples from live-captured and released harbour seals from three regions around...

Over 170,000 whales were killed in the sub-Antarctic waters of South Georgia (Islas Georgias del Sur, SG, South Atlantic) from 1904 to 1965. In recent decades, whales are regular summer visitors, with the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) and humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliea) most commonly reported. A 23-day cetacean survey was condu...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY • Human health can be affected by toxin-producing phytoplankton, pathogenic Vibrio species (bacteria) and noroviruses (NoV) in UK waters. • The influence of climate change on toxin-producing phytoplankton is complex. This can be difficult to distinguish from shorter-term weather events and larger-scale circulatory processes. Confi...

Climate change-driven alterations in Arctic environments can influence habitat availability, species distributions and interactions, and the breeding, foraging, and health of marine mammals. Phocine distemper virus (PDV), which has caused extensive mortality in Atlantic seals, was confirmed in sea otters in the North Pacific Ocean in 2004, raising...

• The abundance of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) in the UK as a whole has increased over the past 10 years, after a 30% decline during the preceding 10 years and two major viral epidemics. However, population trends vary greatly among regions, with those on the east coast of Scotland and in the Northern Isles experiencing dramatic declines since t...

• Measuring the energy stores, or body condition, of cetaceans is vital for monitoring population health. Cetaceans are exposed to a range of anthropogenic stressors, including, for example, noise, contaminants, habitat degradation, reduced prey availability, ship strike, and entanglement. Tools to assess body condition in these inaccessible and vu...

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) remain a risk to marine ecosystem health. POPs accumulate in fat tissue and are biomagnified up through food webs, generating high concentrations in apex predators, including marine mammals. Seals are thus often cited as sentinels of marine environment POP levels. Measuring changes across decadal timescales in t...

The fate and transportation of mercury in the marine environment are driven by a combination of anthropogenic atmospheric and aquatic sources, as well as natural geological inputs. Mercury biomagnifies up the food chain, resulting in the bioaccumulation of toxic concentrations in higher trophic organisms even when concentrations in their habitat re...

Investigation of marine mammal dive-by-dive blood distribution and oxygenation has been limited by a lack of noninvasive technology for use in freely diving animals. Here, we developed a noninvasive near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device to measure relative changes in blood volume and haemoglobin oxygenation continuously in the blubber and brain...

ABSTRACT: Phocid herpesvirus 1 (PhHV-1) is known to infect grey seals Halichoerus grypus but little is known about its pathogenicity or true prevalence in this species. To investigate the prevalence of and risk factors associated with PHV-1 infection, nasal swabs were collected from grey seal pups and yearlings on the Isle of May, a well-studied gr...

Understanding the factors affecting individual harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) survival is essential for determining population level health risks. We estimated postweaning dispersal, and modeled the effects of morphology, hematology, and blubber contaminants on the survival of recently weaned harbor seal pups using a mark recapture framework. We depl...

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic, ubiquitous, resist breakdown, bioaccumulate in living tissue and biomagnify in food webs. POPs can also alter energy balance in humans and wildlife. Marine mammals experience high POP concentrations, but consequences for their tissue metabolic characteristics are unknown. We used blubber explants from...

PCB—still a problem Until they were recognized as highly toxic and carcinogenic, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were once used widely. Their production was banned in the United States in 1978, though they are still produced globally and persist in the environment. Persistent organic compounds, like PCBs, magnify across trophic levels, and thus ap...

Urogenital carcinoma is common in wild California sea lions ( Zalophus californianus) along the west coast of the US. From 1979 to 1994, this cancer was observed in 18% (66/370) of necropsied subadult and adult sea lions at The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. A retrospective review of records from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2015 w...

Mammalian adipose tissue is increasingly being recognized as an endocrine organ involved in the regulation of a number of metabolic processes and pathways. It responds to signals from different hormone systems and the central nervous system , and expresses a variety of protein factors with important paracrine and endocrine functions. This study pre...

The 1988 and 2002 phocine distemper virus (PDV) outbreaks in European harbour seals Phoca vitulina are among the largest mass mortality events recorded in marine mammals. Despite its large impact on harbour seal population numbers, and 3 decades of studies, many questions regarding the spread and temporal origin of PDV remain unanswered. Here, we s...

Adipose tissue is fundamental to energy balance, which underpins fitness and survival. Knowledge of adipose regulation in animals that undergo rapid fat deposition and mobilisation aids understanding of their energetic responses to rapid environmental change. Tissue explants can be used to investigate adipose regulation in wildlife species with lar...

The potential impact of exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on the health and survival of cetaceans continues to be an issue for conservation and management, yet few quantitative approaches for estimating population level effects have been developed. An individual based model (IBM) for assessing effects on both calf survival and immunity w...

Since 2000 there has been a major decline in the abundance of Scottish harbour seals Phoca vitulina. The causes of the decline remain uncertain. The aim of this study was to establish the extent to which the seals in the regions of greatest decline have been exposed to Brucella, a bacterial pathogen that causes reproductive failure in terrestrial m...

Due to an increase in pinniped strandings with consistent pathological findings throughout the North Atlantic coast of the United States during the summer and fall of 2006, an unusual mortal- ity event (UME) was declared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on 20 October 2006. The...

Mammalian body condition is an important individual fitness metric as it affects both survival and reproductive success. The ability to accurately measure condition has key implications for predicting individual and population health, and therefore monitoring the population-level effects of changing environments. No consensus currently exists on th...

The St. Lawrence Estuary (“SLE”) population of beluga (Delphinapterus leucas) was depleted by hunting. The population failed to increase in numbers at the rate one would expect after cessation of hunting. We conducted a population viability analysis (“PVA”) to quantify factors that most likely limit recovery of SLE beluga. The main threats consider...

In the United Kingdom (UK), several harbour seal ( Phoca vitulina ) populations have been declining over the past decade. In order to understand the effect of these changes in abundance, this study seeks to determine the population structure of harbour seals in the UK, and in Scotland in particular, on a wider and finer spatial scale than has previ...

Glucose is an important metabolic fuel and circulating levels are tightly regulated in most mammals, but can drop when body fuel reserves become critically low. Glucose is mobilized rapidly from liver and muscle during stress in response to increased circulating cortisol. Blood glucose levels can thus be of value in conservation as an indicator of...

Marine mammals help gather information on some of the harshest environments on the planet, through the use of miniaturized ocean sensors glued on their fur. Since 2004, hundreds of diving marine animals, mainly Antarctic and Arctic seals, have been fitted with a new generation of Argos tags developed by the Sea Mammal Research Unit of the Universit...

From 2010 to 2015, a team of scientists studied how the BP Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill affected marine mammals inhabiting the northern Gulf of Mexico, as part of the DWH Natural Resource Damage Assessment process. The scientists conducted the assessment on behalf of the DWH co-Trustees, with the purpose of investigating whether marine mammals...

KEY HEADLINES • Toxin producing phytoplankton, pathogenic vibrios (bacteria commonly found in low salinity water) and noroviruses all have the potential to impact human health. • The relationship between climate change and toxin producing phytoplankton is complex. Considerable unknowns remain about how climate change will impact this part of the pl...

Marine mammals help gather information on some of the harshest environments on the planet, through the use of miniaturized ocean sensors glued on their fur. Since 2004, hundreds of diving marine animals, mainly Antarctic and Arctic seals, have been fitted with a new generation of Argos tags developed by the Sea Mammal Research Unit of the Universit...

Seals help gather information on some of the harshest environments on the planet, through the use of miniaturized ocean sensors glued on their fur. The resulting data – gathered from remote, icy seas over the last decade – are now freely available to scientists around the world from the data portal http://www. meop.net. The Polar oceans are changin...

This conference poster presents the final results of my MRes project on modelling the epidemiology of PDV and the possible role of grey seals. We also explore vaccination strategies. Phocine distemper virus (PDV) emerged in 1988 and 2002 causing substantial declines in harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) populations around Northern Europe, with approxima...

An animal-borne blood sampler with data logging functions was developed for phocid seals which collected two blood samples for the comparison of endocrinological/biochemical parameters under two different conditions. The sampler can be triggered by preset hydrostatic pressure, acceleration (descending or ascending), temperature and time, and also m...

Poster for presentation at the EEID conference at Cornell University on my MRes research. This is mainly an introduction and a poster about what I am planing to do. Please see my most recent poster to see the results and conclusions of this study.

Cortisol is one of the main glucocorticoid hormones involved in both the mammalian stress response, and in fat metabolism and energy regulation, making it of increasing interest as a biomarker for stress, health and overall physiological state. However, transient stress responses to animal handling and sampling may be important sources of measureme...

Microbial pollution of the marine environment through land-sea transfer of human and livestock pathogens is of concern. Salmonella was isolated from rectal swabs of free-ranging and stranded grey seal pups (21.1%; 37/175) and compared to strains from the same serovars isolated from human clinical cases, livestock, wild mammals and birds in Scotland...

Background A multitude of correlations between heterozygosity and fitness proxies associated with disease have been reported from wild populations, but the genetic basis of these associations is unresolved. We used a longitudinal dataset on wild Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki) to develop a relatively new perspective on this problem, by te...

Naturally occurring cancers in non-laboratory species have great potential in helping to decipher the often complex causes of neoplasia. Wild animal models could add substantially to our understanding of carcinogenesis, particularly of genetic and environmental interactions, but they are currently underutilized. Studying neoplasia in wild animals i...

In recent years there has been significant interest in modelling cumulative effects and the population consequences of individual changes in cetacean behaviour and physiology due to disturbance. One potential source of disturbance that has garnered particular interest is whale-watching. Though perceived as ‘green’ or eco-friendly tourism, there is...

We review the molecular and epidemiological characteristics of cetacean morbillivirus (CeMV) and the diagnosis and pathogenesis of associated disease, with six different strains detected in cetaceans worldwide. CeMV has caused epidemics with high mortality in odontocetes in Europe, the USA and Australia. It represents a distinct species within the...

Phocine distemper virus (PDV) was first recognized in 1988 following a massive epidemic in harbor and grey seals in north-western Europe. Since then, the epidemiology of infection in North Atlantic and Arctic pinnipeds has been investigated. In the western North Atlantic endemic infection in harp and grey seals predates the European epidemic, with...

Although neoplasia is a major cause of mortality in humans and domestic animals, it has rarely been described in wildlife species. One of the few examples is a highly prevalent urogenital carcinoma in California sea lions (CSLs). Although the aetiology of this carcinoma is clearly multifactorial, inbreeding depression, as estimated using levels of...

Environmental pollution often accompanies the expansion and urbanisation of human populations where sewage and wastewaters commonly have an impact on the marine environments. Here we explored the potential for faecal bacterial pathogens, of anthropic origin, to spread to marine wildlife in coastal areas. The common zoonotic bacterium Campylobacter...

The infection status of harbor seals Phoca vitulina in central California, USA, was evaluated through broad surveillance for pathogens in stranded and wild-caught animals from 2001 to 2008, with most samples collected in 2007 and 2008. Stranded animals from Mendocino County to San Luis Obispo County were sampled at a rehabilitation facility: The Ma...

Brucellosis is a worldwide infectious zoonotic disease caused by Gram-negative bacteria of the genus Brucella, and Brucella infections in marine mammals were first reported in 1994. A serosurvey investigating the presence of anti-Brucella antibodies in 3 Antarctic pinniped species was undertaken with a protein A/G indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbe...

Within individuals, immunity may compete with other life history traits for resources, such as energy and protein, and the damage caused by immunopathology can sometimes outweigh the protective benefits that immune responses confer. However, our understanding of the costs of immunity in the wild and how they relate to the myriad energetic demands o...

Average changes in immune and condition measures by age class and colony. ‘Δ’ denotes ‘change in’, ‘MLR’ mass per unit length (kg; Ln (kg) in juveniles), ‘SFT’ skinfold thickness (cm), ‘ALB’ albumin concentration (relative peak intensity), ‘IgG’ total immunoglobulin G concentration (mg mL −1), ‘WBC’ total leukocyte concentration (109 L−1) and ‘PHA’...

Full models of the selected relationship between change in IgG concentration and change in albumin concentration in juveniles. The effects of sex are reported as contrasts and males were used as the reference sex. (DOCX)

Full models of the five selected relationships between change in an immune measure and change in a condition variable in pups. The effects of sex are reported as contrasts and females were used as the reference sex. (DOCX)

Large whales are subjected to a variety of conservation pressures that could be better monitored and managed if physiological information could be gathered readily from free-swimming whales. However, traditional approaches to studying physiology have been impractical for large whales, because there is no routine method for capture of the largest sp...

Infectious disease threatens biodiversity and human health on a global scale, and disease emergence may become more common as humans further encroach on habitats and modify environments. To accurately assess the risk of disease emergence in free-ranging populations of vertebrates, we require an understanding of the dynamics of immunity in the wild....

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY High biomass Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) such as Karenia mikimotoi and shellfish toxin producing HAB species continue to be observed in UK and Republic of Ireland waters. Regional differences continue to be seen in the distribution of HABs in UK and RoI waters with impacts mainly observed in the south and west coast of Ireland and...

Seals must manage their energy reserves carefully while they fast on land to ensure they go to sea with sufficient fuel to sustain them until they find food. Glucocorticoids (GC) have been implicated in the control of fuel metabolism and termination of fasting in pinnipeds. Here we tested the hypothesis that dexamethasone, an artificial GC, increas...

Objective: To determine the effect of natural exposure to domoic acid (DA) on eosinophil counts and adrenal gland function in California sea lions (Zalophus californianus). Design: Cross-sectional prospective study. Animals: 39 California sea lions. Procedures: Adult female sea lions admitted to a rehabilitation hospital during 2009 were cla...

TOXOPLASMA GONDII is an intracellular protozoan parasite with a worldwide distribution. T gondii has a complex life cycle, and members of the family, Felidae (domestic cats and their relatives), are the only definitive host. Oocysts are shed in the faeces of felids, and there are two routes of becoming infected: (1) ingestion of T gondii oocysts fr...

The cytokine hormone leptin is a key signalling molecule in many pathways that control physiological functions. Although leptin demonstrates structural conservation in mammals, there is evidence of positive selection in primates, lagomorphs and chiropterans. We previously reported that the leptin genes of the grey and harbour seals (phocids) have s...

CLUSTAL X alignment of diverse mammalian leptin nucleotide sequences which was manually edited using Bioedit version 7.0.5.3 [36]. Alignment used as a basis from which to compare phylogenetic topologies using MP, ML and NJ methods. A representative tree generated using NJ prediction is shown in manuscript Fig. 2. (TIF)