we're happy to share with you the
publication on Plos One of a paper investigating the application of a specific
sampling tool attached to a UAV to analyze the blow from
small cetaceans and their respiratory microbiome.
Centelleghe C, Carraro L, Gonzalvo J, Rosso M, Esposti E, Gili C, Bonato M., Pedrotti D., Cardazzo B, Povinelli M., Mazzariol S. (2020) The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to sample the blow microbiome of small cetaceans. PLoS ONE 15(7): e0235537. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235537
Recent studies describe the
use of UAVs in collecting blow samples from large whales
to analyze the microbial and viral community in exhaled
air. Unfortunately, attempts to collect blow from small
cetaceans have not been successful due to their swimming
and diving behavior. In order to overcome these
limitations, in this study we investigated the
application of a specific sampling tool attached to a
UAV to analyze the blow from small cetaceans and their
respiratory microbiome. Preliminary trials to set up the
sampling tool were conducted on a group of 6 bottlenose
dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) under human care, housed
at Acquario di Genova, with approximately 1 meter
distance between the blowing animal and the tool to
obtain suitable samples. The same sampling kit,
suspended via a 2 meter rope assembled on a waterproof
UAV, flying 3 meters above the animals, was used to
sample the blows of 5 wild bottlenose dolphins in the
Gulf of Ambracia (Greece) and a sperm whale (Physeter
macrocephalus) in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy),
to investigate whether this experimental assembly also
works for large whale sampling. In order to distinguish
between blow-associated microbes and seawater microbes,
we pooled 5 seawater samples from the same area where
blow samples' collection were carried out. The the
respiratory microbiota was assessed by using the V3-V4
region of the 16S rRNA gene via Illumina Amplicon
Sequencing. The pooled water samples contained more
bacterial taxa than the blow samples of both wild
animals and the sequenced dolphin maintained under human
care. The composition of the bacterial community
differed between the water samples and between the blow
samples of wild cetaceans and that under human care, but
these differences may have been mediated by different
microbial communities between seawater and aquarium
water. The sperm whale's respiratory microbiome was more
similar to the results obtained from wild bottlenose
dolphins. Although the number of samples used in this
study was limited and sampling and analyses were
impaired by several limitations, the results are rather
encouraging, as shown by the evident microbial
differences between seawater and blow samples, confirmed
also by the meta-analysis carried out comparing our
results with those obtained in previous studies.
Collecting exhaled air from small cetaceans using drones
is a challenging process, both logistically and
technically. The success in obtaining samples from small
cetacean blow in this study in comparison to previous
studies is likely due to the distance the sampling kit
is suspended from the drone, which reduced the
likelihood that the turbulence of the drone propeller
interfered with successfully sampling blow, suggested as
a factor leading to poor success in previous studies.
The publication can be
found at the link here below
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235537
Sandro Mazzariol
-- Prof. Sandro Mazzariol, DVM, PhD Dipartimento di Biomedicina Comparata e Alimentazione (BCA) - Universitą degli Studi di Padova Cetaceans strandings Emergency Response Team (CERT) Centro Interuniversitario per la Ricerca sui CEtacei (CIRCE) AGRIPOLIS - Ed. Museo Viale dell'Universitą 16 35020 - Legnaro (PD) tel.: +39 049 827 2963 fax: +39 049 827 2973 skype: smazzariol