Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse

Autonomous University of Queretaro · Facultad de Ciencias Naturales

Despite the high incidence of urogenital carcinoma (UGC) in California sea lions stranded along California, no UGC has been reported in other areas of their distribution; however, cell morphologies typical of premalignant states have been found. Risk factors for UGC include high of organochlorines and infection with a gammaherpesvirus, OtHV-1, but...

Alopecia is characterized by the thinning and loss of hair or fur, and has been observed in different marine carnivores. Until recently, there were no records of alopecia in marine mammals from the Northeast Pacific Ocean. However, sightings of juvenile male Guadalupe fur seals with patchy alopecia in the ventral body have been reported in the San...

Therapeutic applications of synthetic mRNA were proposed more than 30 years ago, and are currently the basis of one of the vaccine platforms used at a massive scale as part of the public health strategy to get COVID-19 under control. To date, there are no published studies on the biodistribution, cellular uptake, endosomal escape, translation rates...

The number of strandings and unusual mortality events that involve marine mammals may have increased, and potential pathogens of the respiratory tract have been found during examination of individuals in many of these events. Given that the core microbiome is key to understand host-bacteria relationships and to identify their relevance for host hea...

The chemical composition of COVID test swabs has not been examined beyond the manufacturers’ datasheets. Given the unprecedented demand for swabs to conduct rapid lateral flow tests and nucleic acid amplification tests, which led to mass production, including 3-D printing platforms, it is plausible that manufacturing impurities could be present in...

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the race for testing new platforms designed to confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2, has been rampant and unprecedented, leading to conditional emergency authorization of various vaccines. Despite progress on early multidrug therapy for COVID-19 patients, the current mandate is to immunize the world populatio...

The phylogeny and systematics of fur seals and sea lions (Otariidae) have long been studied with diverse data types, including an increasing amount of molecular data. However, only a few phylogenetic relationships have reached acceptance because of strong gene-tree species tree discordance. Divergence times estimates in the group also vary largely...

Guadalupe fur seals (Arctocephalus townsendi) and California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) are the only two otariids that inhabit Mexican islands. California sea lions are widespread along the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula and within the Gulf of California, whereas Guadalupe fur seals are only found on Guadalupe Island and San Be...

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the race for testing new platforms designed to confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2, has been rampant and unprecedented, leading to conditional emergency authorization of various vaccines. Despite progress on early multidrug therapy for COVID-19 patients, the current mandate is to immunize the world populatio...

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the race for testing new platforms designed to confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2, has been rampant and unprecedented, leading to conditional emergency authorization of various vaccines. Despite progress on early multidrug therapy for COVID-19 patients, the current mandate is to immunize the world populatio...

The Guadalupe fur seal (Arctocephalus philippii townsendi or A. townsendi) was at the brink of extinction due to overhunting during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today, the Guadalupe fur seal remains classified as an Endangered species by Mexican law and as Threatened under the US Endangered Species Act of 1973. Currently, the entire pop...

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 us...

Background The need for safe and effective antiviral treatments is pressing given the number of viral infections that are prevalent in animal and human populations, often causing devastating economic losses and mortality. Informal accounts of anecdotal use of chlorine dioxide (ClO 2 ), a well-known disinfectant and antiseptic, in COVID-19 patients...

A bstract The phylogeny and systematics of fur seals and sea lions (Otariidae) have long been studied with diverse data types, including an increasing amount of molecular data. However, only a few phylogenetic relationships have reached acceptance pointing at strong gene-tree species tree discordance. Divergence times in the group also vary largely...

The population growth of top predators depends largely on environmental conditions suitable for aggregating sufficient and high-quality prey. We reconstructed numerically the size of a resident population of California sea lions in the Gulf of California during 1978–2019 and its relation with multi-decadal sea surface temperature anomalies. This is...

Background: Differences in gut microbiota composition have been associated with obesity and metabolic alterations in children. The aim of this study was to analyze the abundance of the main bacterial families of the gut among children according to their body composition and metabolic markers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 93...

At least two species of filarial worms, Dirofilaria immitis and Acanthocheilonema (Dipetalonema) odendhali, infect otariid pinnipeds, including the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus). To date, evidence of infection in sea lions has come from dead or captive animals, and little is known about filariasis in free-living populations. We sampl...

The number of social contacts of mammals is positively correlated with the diversity of their gut microbes. There is some evidence that sociality also affects microbes in the respiratory tract. We tested whether the airway microbiota of cetacean species differ depending on the whales’ level of sociality. We sampled the blow of blue (Balaenoptera mu...

The gut microbiome is an integral part of a species’ ecology, but we know little about how host characteristics impact its development in wild populations. Here, we explored the role of such intrinsic factors in shaping the gut microbiome of northern elephant seals during a critical developmental window of six weeks after weaning, when the pups sta...

The gut microbiome is an integral part of a species’ ecology, but we know little about how host characteristics impact its development in wild populations. Here, we explored the role of such intrinsic factors in shaping the gut microbiome of northern elephant seals during a critical developmental window of six weeks after weaning, when the pups sta...

There is growing evidence of the adverse effects of global environmental change on marine mammals, particularly in terms of changes in abundance, distribution, habitat use, migratory phenology, feeding habits, risk of infectious diseases, bioaccumulation of contaminants, declines in reproductive success, and reductions in genetic diversity. These a...

Marine mammals belong to five different orders that evolved to marine life independently at least in nine occasions. These evolutionary processes consisted of adaptations that mostly included fusiform morphology, large body size, large fat stores, capacity to concentrate urine, large oxygen stores in the blood and muscles as well as hearing develop...

The California sea lion is one of the few wild mammals prone to develop cancer, particularly urogenital carcinoma (UGC), whose prevalence is currently estimated at 25% of dead adult sea lions stranded along the California coastline. Genetic factors, viruses and organochlorines have been identified as factors that increase the risk of occurrence of...

Melanin is a widespread pigment of the animal tegument. Two variants of melanin exist, eumelanin, a dark brown pigment, and pheomelanin, a reddish-orange pigment. While eumelanin is photoprotective, pheomelanin has been linked to cellular damage and high cancer risk. Despite this negative effect, pheomelanin is present in many, but not all, species...

A central paradigm in conservation biology is that population bottlenecks reduce genetic diversity and population viability. In an era of biodiversity loss and climate change, understanding the determinants and consequences of bottlenecks is therefore an important challenge. However, as most studies focus on single species, the multitude of potenti...

The systematics and phylogeny of Otariidae have been extensively studied for over two centuries. Yet, several relationships, in particular, the monophyly within Arctocephalus, remain unclear. Recent molecular phylogenies only used few concatenated mitochondrial or nuclear genes. Here we reconstructed the Otariidae phylogeny based on whole-genome se...

Polychorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners are a cause for concern due to their persistence in the environment, their lipophilic properties that cause them to bio-accumulate in top predators, and their adverse effects on mammalian health. For example, the common urogenital carcinoma reported in California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) (CSL) is as...

One level at which persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PAHs) can exert damage is by causing DNA strand‐breaks or nucleotide base modifications, which, if unrepaired, can lead to embryonic mutations, abnormal development and cancer. In marine ecosystems, genotoxicity is expected to be particularly strong in long...

A central paradigm in conservation biology is that population bottlenecks reduce genetic diversity and negatively impact population viability and adaptive potential. In an era of unprecedented biodiversity loss and climate change, understanding both the determinants and consequences of bottlenecks in wild populations is therefore an increasingly im...

We examined the associations between California sea lion MHC class II DRB (Zaca-DRB) configuration and diversity, and leptospirosis. As Zaca-DRB gene sequences are involved with antigen presentation of bacteria and other extracellular pathogens, we predicted that they would play a role in determining responses to these pathogenic spirochaetes. Spec...

To date, there is limited knowledge of the effects that abnormal sea surface temperature (SST) can have on the physiology of neonate pinnipeds. However, maternal nutritional deficiencies driven by alimentary restrictions would expectedly impact pinniped development and fitness, as an adequate supply of nutrients is essential for growth and proper f...

To date, most studies on pinniped immunoglobulins have focused on circulating antibodies. However, systemic and local immune activities differ in terms of maturation, intensity, and types of effectors that participate. Here, we examined levels of three immunoglobulin isotypes, IgG, IgM and IgA, in the blood and mucosal membranes of free-living Cali...

The past decades have been characterized by a growing number of climatic anomalies. As these anomalies tend to occur suddenly and unexpectedly, it is often difficult to procure empirical evidence of their effects on natural populations. We analysed how the recent sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the northeastern Pacific Ocean affects body c...

Data used for the analyses presented in this paper. (PDF)

More detailed description of methods used. (PDF)

Reference values of total and differential white blood cell (WBC) counts from clinically healthy California sea lion, Zalophus californianus, pups born in 2012 at Granito Island in the Gulf of California. The table also shows the mean and standard deviation of each cell type for pups born in 2014 and 2015 at the San Benito Archipelago. (PDF)

Reference values of blood chemistry parameters from clinically healthy California sea lion, Zalophus californianus, pups born in 2012 at Granito Island in the Gulf of California. The table also shows the mean and standard deviation of each cell type for pups born in 2014 and 2015 at San Benito Archipelago. (PDF)

During the breeding season of 2016, a survey of California sea lions (CSLs) was undertaken in the Midriff Region of the Gulf of California, Mexico. Adult females were captured using hoop nets and restrained without anesthesia. Upon being released, one of the females (ID: FZC-LM1), showed an evident lack of voluntary coordination and gait abnormalit...

Background – The cellular mechanisms used to counteract or limit damage caused by exposure of marine vertebratesto solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation are poorly understood. Cetaceans are vulnerable because they lack protectiveskin appendages and are obliged to surface continuously to breathe, thus being exposed repeatedly to UV light. Although molecu...

Mucosal swabs have long been used to study various physiological processes in humans. In contrast, systematic sampling of mucosae is rare for wild animals, and except for its use as a source of DNA for population genetics, its potential as a tool to study physiologically relevant processes of natural populations has not been explored fully. We coll...

The abundance of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) (CSLs) and Guadalupe fur seals (Arctocephalus philippii townsendi) (GFSs) from the San Benito Archipelago (SBA) was determined through nine monthly surveys in 2014–2015. Assessment of their foraging habits was examined based on the isotopic analysis of pups (maternal indicators) (SIAR/S...

Abundance of California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) (CSLs) and Guadalupe fur seals (Arctocephalus townsendi) (GFSs) at San Benito. Information from 2012 and 2013 are included for the CLSs. (XLSX)

The skin is one of the most complex and multifunctional organs. In mammals, one of its main functions is to absorb ultraviolet radiation (UVr), considered to be of the most damaging exogenous factors that exist. UVr absorption is performed by melanin, a photocompound produced by melanocytes, located in epidermis basal layer and that is transmitted...

Title of ESM 1. Microphotographs of cellular transformation of the genital epithelium of California sea lions from Granito Island.

An unusually high prevalence of metastatic urogenital carcinoma has been observed in free-ranging California sea lions stranded off the coast of California in the past two decades. No cases have been reported for sea lions in the relatively unpolluted Gulf of California. We investigated occurrence of genital epithelial transformation in 60 sea lion...

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...

La ecoinmunología estudia las bases moleculares y fisiológicas de las respuestas inmunes desde un contexto ecológico y evolutivo. Con base en la teoría evolutiva, las poblaciones con niveles altos de variabilidad inmunogenética deberían tener mayor capacidad de adaptación a las presiones ambientales. Sin embargo, la plasticidad fenotípica es la que...

Variations in immune function can arise owing to trade-offs, that is, the allocation of limited resources among costly competing physiological functions. Nevertheless, there is little information regarding the ontogeny of the immune system within an ecological context, and it is still unknown whether development affects the way in which resources a...

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...

Los linfocitos, principalmente las células NK y los linfocitos T CD8+, son las poblaciones del sistema inmune encargadas de la vigilancia y eliminación de las células que han sido transformadas por acción de virus o por una mutación genética de origen interno o externo. Mediante la acción de estos efectores inmunes se impide el desarrollo de neopla...

Ecoimmunology is a discipline that studies the molecular and physiological bases of immune responses, within an ecological and evolutionary framework. High immunogenetic diversity is well known to confer high adaptability in natural populations. However, it is plasticity what drives a particular genotype to generate different phenotypes in response...