Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ15N, δ44/42Ca and trace elements)

Jeremy E. Martin; Théo Tacail; Laurent Simon; Auguste Hassler; Philippe Télouk; Vincent Balter

doi:10.1002/rcm.9612

Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ¹⁵N, δ^44/42Ca and trace elements)

Jeremy E. Martin^*, Théo Tacail, Laurent Simon, Auguste Hassler, Philippe Télouk, Vincent Balter

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Rationale: Understanding the interactions between marine mammals and their environment is critical for ecological and conservation purposes. Odontocetes offer a continuous record of their life history from birth as recorded in annual increments of their tooth dentine. Because dentine is not remodeled and contains collagen, nitrogen stable isotope compositions (δ¹⁵N) reflect nursing and weaning events, life history traits that would otherwise be impossible to retrieve in such elusive marine animals. Yet, capturing the magnitude and temporal changes in these events is constrained by tooth size and sampling resolution. Moreover, historical and fossil specimens undergo collagen decay, hence the need to develop the measurements of other proxies. Methods: Here, we present a multiproxy approach to investigate the use of Ca isotope compositions (δ^44/42Ca) in relation to δ¹⁵N and laser ablation profiles for different trace metal (Ba, Mg, Sr, Zn) concentrations across the dentine of a single individual of the common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus. Results: To help interpret the dentine data, we provide milk elemental compositions and δ^44/42Ca values for two odontocete individuals. We discuss the observed changes in δ^44/42Ca across the dentine as potential markers of birth, weaning interval, incidental ingestion of seawater, trophic level and physiology. Incidental ingestion of seawater during nursing induces a positive offset in δ^44/42Ca values recorded in the early formed dentine. Conclusions: Life history parameters of individual marine mammals are extremely difficult to retrieve due to limitations in observing specimens in the wild and the methodology presented here offers new ecological and paleoecological perspectives.

Original language	English
Article number	e9612
Number of pages	15
Journal	Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Volume	37
Issue number	19
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.9612
Publication status	Published - 15 Oct 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC‐ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld‐Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC‐ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work.

Funding Information:
The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC-ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld-Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC-ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Data Availability Statement

the dataset used in this work is available as supplementary material.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1002/rcm.9612Licence: CC BY

Martin_Etal_RCMS_Inferring_Odontocete_Life_VOR
© 2023 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 5.45 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{33098a3eac5e47089c9173f7db575078,

title = "Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ15N, δ44/42Ca and trace elements)",

abstract = "Rationale: Understanding the interactions between marine mammals and their environment is critical for ecological and conservation purposes. Odontocetes offer a continuous record of their life history from birth as recorded in annual increments of their tooth dentine. Because dentine is not remodeled and contains collagen, nitrogen stable isotope compositions (δ15N) reflect nursing and weaning events, life history traits that would otherwise be impossible to retrieve in such elusive marine animals. Yet, capturing the magnitude and temporal changes in these events is constrained by tooth size and sampling resolution. Moreover, historical and fossil specimens undergo collagen decay, hence the need to develop the measurements of other proxies. Methods: Here, we present a multiproxy approach to investigate the use of Ca isotope compositions (δ44/42Ca) in relation to δ15N and laser ablation profiles for different trace metal (Ba, Mg, Sr, Zn) concentrations across the dentine of a single individual of the common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus. Results: To help interpret the dentine data, we provide milk elemental compositions and δ44/42Ca values for two odontocete individuals. We discuss the observed changes in δ44/42Ca across the dentine as potential markers of birth, weaning interval, incidental ingestion of seawater, trophic level and physiology. Incidental ingestion of seawater during nursing induces a positive offset in δ44/42Ca values recorded in the early formed dentine. Conclusions: Life history parameters of individual marine mammals are extremely difficult to retrieve due to limitations in observing specimens in the wild and the methodology presented here offers new ecological and paleoecological perspectives.",

author = "Martin, {Jeremy E.} and Th{\'e}o Tacail and Laurent Simon and Auguste Hassler and Philippe T{\'e}louk and Vincent Balter",

note = "Funding Information: The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC‐ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld‐Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC‐ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work. Funding Information: The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC-ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld-Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC-ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",

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AU - Tacail, Théo

AU - Simon, Laurent

AU - Hassler, Auguste

AU - Télouk, Philippe

AU - Balter, Vincent

N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC‐ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld‐Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC‐ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work. Funding Information: The authors thank F. Demaret and W. Dabin (Observatoire Pelagis) for helping secure odontocete milk and tooth samples. This work was funded by the Conseil National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) INSU INTERRVIE program (Early Whale Resource Use and Diet project) to J.E.M. The authors thank LGLTPE (UMR 5276) and ENS de Lyon for supporting the MC-ICP mass spectrometry platform. Nitrogen isotope measurements were performed on the “Ecologie Isotopique” platform of LEHNA (UMR 5023). The authors thank F. Arnauld-Godet and E. Albalat for technical support on the MC-ICP platform of the LGLTPE. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor R. Bol for their constructive comments that helped improve the quality of this work. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2023/10/15

Y1 - 2023/10/15

N2 - Rationale: Understanding the interactions between marine mammals and their environment is critical for ecological and conservation purposes. Odontocetes offer a continuous record of their life history from birth as recorded in annual increments of their tooth dentine. Because dentine is not remodeled and contains collagen, nitrogen stable isotope compositions (δ15N) reflect nursing and weaning events, life history traits that would otherwise be impossible to retrieve in such elusive marine animals. Yet, capturing the magnitude and temporal changes in these events is constrained by tooth size and sampling resolution. Moreover, historical and fossil specimens undergo collagen decay, hence the need to develop the measurements of other proxies. Methods: Here, we present a multiproxy approach to investigate the use of Ca isotope compositions (δ44/42Ca) in relation to δ15N and laser ablation profiles for different trace metal (Ba, Mg, Sr, Zn) concentrations across the dentine of a single individual of the common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus. Results: To help interpret the dentine data, we provide milk elemental compositions and δ44/42Ca values for two odontocete individuals. We discuss the observed changes in δ44/42Ca across the dentine as potential markers of birth, weaning interval, incidental ingestion of seawater, trophic level and physiology. Incidental ingestion of seawater during nursing induces a positive offset in δ44/42Ca values recorded in the early formed dentine. Conclusions: Life history parameters of individual marine mammals are extremely difficult to retrieve due to limitations in observing specimens in the wild and the methodology presented here offers new ecological and paleoecological perspectives.

AB - Rationale: Understanding the interactions between marine mammals and their environment is critical for ecological and conservation purposes. Odontocetes offer a continuous record of their life history from birth as recorded in annual increments of their tooth dentine. Because dentine is not remodeled and contains collagen, nitrogen stable isotope compositions (δ15N) reflect nursing and weaning events, life history traits that would otherwise be impossible to retrieve in such elusive marine animals. Yet, capturing the magnitude and temporal changes in these events is constrained by tooth size and sampling resolution. Moreover, historical and fossil specimens undergo collagen decay, hence the need to develop the measurements of other proxies. Methods: Here, we present a multiproxy approach to investigate the use of Ca isotope compositions (δ44/42Ca) in relation to δ15N and laser ablation profiles for different trace metal (Ba, Mg, Sr, Zn) concentrations across the dentine of a single individual of the common bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus. Results: To help interpret the dentine data, we provide milk elemental compositions and δ44/42Ca values for two odontocete individuals. We discuss the observed changes in δ44/42Ca across the dentine as potential markers of birth, weaning interval, incidental ingestion of seawater, trophic level and physiology. Incidental ingestion of seawater during nursing induces a positive offset in δ44/42Ca values recorded in the early formed dentine. Conclusions: Life history parameters of individual marine mammals are extremely difficult to retrieve due to limitations in observing specimens in the wild and the methodology presented here offers new ecological and paleoecological perspectives.

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Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ¹⁵N, δ^44/42Ca and trace elements)

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

UN SDGs

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Data From Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ15N, δ44/42Ca and trace elements)

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Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ15N, δ44/42Ca and trace elements)

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Datasets

Data From Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ15N, δ44/42Ca and trace elements)

Cite this

Inferring odontocete life history traits in dentine using a multiproxy approach (δ¹⁵N, δ^44/42Ca and trace elements)