The work of a number of researchers affiliated with JAAS has been prominently featured in the popular press recently. The paper:
Harbor Seals
“First health and pollution study on harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) living in the German Elbe estuary“, Antje Kakuschke, Elizabeth Valentine-Thon, Simone Griesel, Juergen Gandrass, Octavio Perez Luzardo, Luis Dominguez Boada, Manuel Zumbado Peña, Maira Almeida González, Mechthild Grebe, Daniel Pröfrock, Hans-Burkhard Erbsloeh, Katharina Kramer, Sonja Fonfara and Andreas Prange., Marine Pollution Bulletin,60(11), 2019-2086.
was cited on a number of popular news sites because of the concerns it raised about the pollution of coastal environments. Specifically, the authors found elevated levels of many heavy metals and long-lived industrial pollutants in the blood of the seals, and hypothesized that similar pollution effects were responsible for the elevated immune response observed in these animals. They suggested that periodic monitoring of these subjects will provide new insights into the adverse effects of marine activity on their local ecosystem, making them- in effect- very cute biomarkers. Kudos to the authors on this wonderful work…
