Dear marmam community,

With the unique (and tragic) occurrence of long-finned pilot whale mass stranding events, we have been given the rare opportunity to assess the potential use of skin as indicator for internal organ mercury burden in these animals. Removing the usual ecological and life-history variation that is inherent with single animal strandings, we were able to determine a relationship between the skin and liver mercury burden in a group of 54 pilot whales that stranded in 2023.

I would greatly appreciate if this article could be shared further, and of course am more than happy to discuss the work in more detail if anyone is interested: https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.70170

Best wishes,

Rebecca von Hellfeld

Dr Rebecca von Hellfeld

Postdoctoral Researcher

University of Aberdeen
School of Biological Science
Environmental Modelling Group

.

":"

    ___:____     |"\/"|

  ,'        `.    \  /

  |  O        \___/  |

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

You may receive emails from me outside of core hours. Please do not feel any pressure to respond outside of your normal working pattern.

The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.
Tha Oilthigh Obar Dheathain na charthannas clàraichte ann an Alba, Àir. SC013683.