Danielle Dillon- MS
- Associate Scientist/Lab Manager at New England Aquarium
Danielle Dillon
- MS
- Associate Scientist/Lab Manager at New England Aquarium
About
39
Publications
44,583
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432
Citations
Introduction
I'm currently refining techniques to extract hormones from unique substrates (mainly keratinous materials these days) and validating EIAs to quantify those hormones once we get them out.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2010 - August 2015
August 2015 - April 2023
May 2006 - August 2010
Position
- Research Assistant
Description
- Isolated viral RNA from soil and fecal swabs, ran PCR reactions and gels, and performed DNA sequencing and analysis.
Education
September 2007 - May 2010
September 2003 - May 2007
Publications
Publications (39)
Understanding wildlife reproductive seasonality is crucial for effective management and long-term monitoring of species. This study investigates the seasonal variability of testosterone in male Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) gray whales, using an eight-year dataset (2016–2023) of individual sightings, drone-based photogrammetry and endocrine an...
Bowhead whales have the longest baleen of any mysticete, with a single baleen plate capturing up to 20 years of continuous physiological data. Thus, bowhead baleen is an ideal sample type for retrospective study of reproductive cycles and physiological responses to environmental stressors. We studied patterns of six hormones across the full length...
Longitudinal studies of individual mysticete whales are possible by utilizing the keratin matrix of baleen. Steroid and thyroid hormones are deposited and stored along the length of each baleen plate, resulting in up to 20 years of continuous hormone data per individual, which can reflect reproductive cycles and physiological responses to environme...
Beaked whales (family Ziphiidae) are mysterious marine mammals – they are deep-diving species, rarely seen at sea and can spend long periods underwater hunting squid and fish at depths of 2,000 m below the surface. Because of their auditory biology and diving behavior, beaked whales are known to be sensitive to naval sonar exposure. This sensitivit...
Multi-year studies of individual mysticete whales are possible by utilizing the keratin matrix of baleen. As shown in previous work, steroid and thyroid hormones are deposited and stored along the length of each baleen plate. Once extracted, up to 20 years of hormone data are represented from a single individual that can reflect physiological respo...
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are lipophilic compounds that bioaccumulate in animals and biomagnify within food webs. Many POPs are endocrine disrupting compounds that impact vertebrate development. POPs accumulate in the Arctic via global distillation and thereby impact high trophic level vertebrates as well as people who live a subsistence...
Reproductive costs must be balanced with survival to maximise lifetime reproductive rates; however, some organisms invest in a single, suicidal bout of breeding known as semelparity. The northern quoll ( Dasyurus hallucatus ) is an endangered marsupial in which males, but not females, are semelparous. Northern quolls living near mining sites on Gro...
Knowledge of baleen whales' reproductive physiology is limited and requires long-term individual-based studies and innovative tools. We used 6 years of individual-level data on the Pacific Coast Feeding Group grey whales to evaluate the utility of faecal progesterone immunoassays and drone-based photogrammetry for pregnancy diagnosis. We explored t...
Knowledge of baleen whales’ reproductive physiology is limited and requires long-term individual-based studies and innovative tools. We used 6 years of individual-level data on the Pacific Coast Feeding Group grey whales to evaluate the utility of faecal progesterone immunoassays and drone-based photogrammetry for regnancy diagnosis. We explored th...
Seventy-three percent of aerial insectivore species of birds breeding in North America have declined in the past five years. This decline is even greater in migratory insectivorous species, which face stressors in both their breeding and non-breeding ranges. The Purple Martin (Progne subis) is an aerial insectivore swallow that overwinters in South...
Synopsis
Monitoring the physiology of small aquatic and marine teleost fish presents challenges. Blood samples, often the first choice for endocrinologists, can be difficult or even impossible to obtain and alternative matrices currently used for hormone analyses do not occur in fishes (e.g., hair, feathers etc.) or are not easily collected from sm...
Baleen powder has been previously shown as a viable technique to study stress and reproduction in large, Mysticeti whales. Steroid hormones are deposited into the baleen’s keratin matrix in such a way that allows for multi-year study of single individuals. Several steroid hormones have been validated in bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus), and here...
Purple Martins (Progne subis) are migratory birds that breed in North America and overwinter and complete their molt in South America. Many of the breeding populations are declining. The eastern North American subspecies of Purple Martin (P. subis subis) comprises >90% of all Purple Martins. This subspecies overwinters and molts in the Amazon Basin...
The acquisition, modification, and curation of heads was endemic in the ancient Andes, especially among the Nasca (1–650 C.E.) on the south coast of Peru. Analyzing this central cultural behavior in context is crucial to understanding how the Nasca flourished in a marginal region. While well-dated Nasca isolated heads (NIHs) are not common due to l...
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is a monotreme endemic to Australia and New Guinea, and is the most widespread native mammal in Australia. Despite its abundance, there are considerable gaps in our understanding of echidna life history such as reproductive cycles in both sexes, patterns of stress physiology, and possible seasonal c...
Environmental pollution causes adverse health effects in many organisms and contributes to health disparities for Arctic communities that depend on subsistence foods, including the Yupik residents of Sivuqaq (St. Lawrence Island), Alaska. Sivuqaq's proximity to Russia made it a strategic location for U.S. military defense sites during the Cold War....
Sampling blood for endocrine analysis from some species may not be practical or ethical. Quantification of hormones extracted from nontypical sample types, such as keratinized tissues, offers a less invasive alternative to the traditional collection and analysis of blood. Here, we aimed to validate assays by using parallelism and accuracy tests for...
The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is a monotreme endemic to Australia and New Guinea, and is the most widespread native mammal in Australia. Despite its abundance, there are considerable gaps in our understanding of echidna life history such as reproductive cycles in both sexes, patterns of stress physiology, and possible seasonal c...
Multiple factors can influence the immune response of ectothermic vertebrates, including body temperature, gonadal steroids, and seasonality, in ways that are thought to reflect trade-offs between energetic investment in immunity vs. reproduction. Hibernating tegu lizards (Salvator merianae) are a unique model to investigate how immunocompetence mi...
Obtaining endocrine data from alternative sample types such as baleen and other keratinized tissues has proven a valuable tool to investigate reproductive and stress physiology via steroid hormone quantification, and metabolic stress via thyroid hormone quantification in whales and other vertebrates. These alternative sample types provide an integr...
Purple Martins (Progne subis) are insectivorous birds that spend their breeding season in North America before migrating to South America, where they molt. Many individuals migrate to the Amazon basin, a region of high mercury (Hg) contamination, which raises the possibility that observed declines in Purple Martins could be linked to mercury exposu...
Monitoring the physiology of wild populations presents many technical challenges. Blood samples, long the gold standard of wildlife endocrinology studies, cannot always be obtained. The validation and use of non-plasma samples to obtain hormone data have greatly improved access to more integrated information about an organism’s physiological state....
People with NR5A1 mutations experience testicular dysgenesis, ovotestes, or adrenal insufficiency, but we do not completely understand the origin of this phenotypic diversity. NR5A1 is expressed in gonadal soma precursor cells before expression of the sex-determining gene SRY. Many fish have two co-orthologs of NR5A1 that likely partitioned ancestr...
Physiological measurements are informative in assessing the relative importance of stressors that potentially impact the health of wildlife. Kelp Gulls, Larus dominicanus (KG), resident to the region of Península Valdés, Argentina, have developed a unique behavior of landing on the backs of southern right whale adults and calves, Eubalaena australi...
Life history transitions and hormones are known to interact and influence many aspects of animal physiology and behavior. The South-American tegu lizard (Salvator merianae) exhibits a profound seasonal shift in metabolism and body temperature, characterized by high daily activity during warmer months, including reproductive endothermy in spring, an...
Thyroid hormones (TH) are key regulators of metabolism that could play an important role in altering physiology and energy allocation across life-history stages. Here, we examine seasonal TH dynamics from 345 plasma samples collected from 134 free-living arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii (Richardson, 1825)) across three consecutive years...
The tegu lizard Salvator merianae is a large, widely distributed teiid lizard endemic to South America that exhibits annual cycles of high activity during the spring and summer, and hibernation during winter. This pattern of activity and hibernation is accompanied by profound seasonal changes in physiology and behavior, including endothermy during...
Male baleen whales have long been suspected to have annual cycles in testosterone, but due to difficulty in collecting endocrine samples, little direct evidence exists to confirm this hypothesis. Potential influences of stress or adrenal stress hormones (cortisol, corticosterone) on male reproduction have also been difficult to study. Baleen has re...
People living a subsistence lifestyle in the Arctic are highly exposed to persistent organic pollutants, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Formerly Used Defense (FUD) sites are point sources of PCB pollution; the Arctic contains thousands of FUD sites, many co-located with indigenous villages. We investigated PCB profiles and biological e...
Background:
Aberrant signaling between germ cells and somatic cells can lead to reproductive disease and depends on diffusible signals, including TGFB-family proteins. The TGFB-family protein Gsdf (gonadal soma derived factor) controls sex determination in some fish and is a candidate for mediating germ cell/soma signaling.
Results:
Zebrafish ex...
Perchlorate is a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that has widespread endocrine disrupting effects in vertebrates, including threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). The target of perchlorate is thyroid tissue where it induces changes in the organization, activation, and morphology of thyroid follicles and surrounding tissues. To test t...
Mx (myxovirus-resistant) proteins are induced by interferon and inhibit viral replication as part of the innate immune response to viral infection in many vertebrates. Influenza A virus appears to be especially susceptible to Mx antiviral effects. We characterized exon 13 and the 3' UTR of the Mx gene in wild ducks, the natural reservoir of influen...
Questions
Questions (12)
Hi all,
I've worked extensively with importing pieces and parts of animals and am familiar with the rules and regulations governing that process. However, one of my PIs is starting a new project involving breast milk from mothers in Guatemala and I can't find any information regarding what needs to be done, if anything, to bring those samples in to the United States. Does anyone out there have experience with this? Thank you so much in advance!
I imagine there is some historical basis for the abbreviations, but I'm not able to find much on the matter. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I need a knob for my Speedvac concentrator rotor (see photos). Thermo wants $140 for an official replacement! Does anyone have an extra knob hanging around or have an idea of a cheap way to replace it?
Thank you!
