Continued Investigation of Immune Competence in Navy Marine Mammals: Implications for Health Viability and Mission Readiness

摘要

Deployed Navy dolphins are exposed to infectious agents and pollutants in environments that may compromise their health and system mission. Challenges dolphins experience during deployments include: transport to different time zones, changes in water temperature, contaminated water, varying acoustic levels, and exposure to wild marine mammal populations. These challenges (confinement/restraint, thermal stress, pollutants, and auditory stress) have been shown to cause immunosuppression in other manuals. Our laboratory has developed and is continuing to develop dolphin-specific markers and assays to assess immunocompetence in cetaceans. These markers and assays were used to evaluate sound as a stressor and looked at the effects of sound level and duration on dolphins as part of the 'Temporary Threshold Shift' studies conducted by scientists at the Navy. Moreover, developed reagents and assays were used to assess immunocompetence in wild bottlenose dolphins. The neural-immune tests developed and adapted for bottlenose dolphins do show changes in both captive and wild animals depending on stress (e.g. duration of sound exposure), geographic location and disease state. These tests will be useful for monitoring health in both captive and wild dolphins as well as useful in assessing efficacy of vaccines, and the monitoring of the impact of the environment and various stressors on dolphin health.