Marine Biology Research (2020)
The preference for coastal habitats makes the harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, vulnerable to fisheries conflicts and hence prone to die due to entangling in fishing nets. An opportunistic sampling of…
Population survey showing hope for population recovery of the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise
Huang, Jie; Mei, Zhigang; Chen, Mao; Han, Yi; Zhang, Xinqiao; Moore, Jeffrey E.; Zhao, Xiujiang; Hao, Yujiang; Wang, Kexiong; Wang, Ding
Biological Conservation (2020)
The Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis), has experienced rapid declines in recent decades. We estimate its abundance based on surveys conducted between November and December 2017 in the main-stem…
Genetic homogeneity in the face of morphological heterogeneity in the harbor porpoise from the Black Sea and adjacent waters (Phocoena phocoena relicta)
Ben Chehida, Yacine; Thumloup, Julie; Vishnyakova, Karina; Gol’din, Pavel; Fontaine, Michael C.
Heredity (2019)
Absence of genetic differentiation is usually taken as an evidence of panmixia, but can also reflect other situations, including even nearly complete demographic independence among large-sized populations. Deciphering which situation…
Abundance decline in the narrow‐ridged finless porpoise population off the Pacific coast of eastern Japan
Shirakihara, Kunio; Nakahara, Fumio; Shinohara, Masanori; Shirakihara, Miki; Hiramatsu, Kazuhiko; Irie, Takahiro
Population Ecology (2019)
The narrow‐ridged finless porpoise Neophocaena asiaeorientalis is a small‐toothed whale with a coastal habitat and is sensitive to human activity. Aerial sighting surveys were conducted in 2012 to evaluate the…
Water, water everywhere: Environmental DNA can unlock population structure in elusive marine species
Parsons, Kim M.; Everett, Meredith; Dahlheim, Marilyn; Park, Linda
Royal Society Open Science (2018)
Determining management units for natural populations is critical for effective conservation and management. However, collecting the requisite tissue samples for population genetic analyses remains the primary limiting factor for a…
Group characteristics, site fidelity, and photo-identification of harbor porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, in Burrows Pass, Fidalgo Island, Washington
Elliser, Cindy R.; MacIver, Katrina H.; Green, Michelle
Marine Mammal Science (2017)
Little is known about harbor porpoises at the individual level or local group structure. Group characteristics, site fidelity, and photo‐identification of harbor porpoises were investigated off Fidalgo Island, Washington State.…
Mixing of porpoise ecotypes in southwestern UK waters revealed by genetic profiling
Fontaine, Michaël C.; Thatcher, Oliver; Ray, Nicolas; Piry, Sylvain; Brownlow, Andrew; Davison, Nicholas J.; Jepson, Paul; Deaville, Rob; Goodman, Simon J.
Royal Society Open Science (2017)
Contact zones between ecotypes are windows for understanding how species may react to climate changes. Here, we analysed the fine-scale genetic and morphological variation in harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) around…
Genetic footprint of population fragmentation and contemporary collapse in a freshwater cetacean
Chen, Minmin; Fontaine, Michael C.; Ben Chehida, Yacine; Zheng, Jinsong; Labbé, Frédéric; Mei, Zhigang; Hao, Yujiang; Wang, Kexiong; Wu, Min; Zhao, Qingzhong; Wang, Ding
Scientific Reports (2017)
Understanding demographic trends and patterns of gene flow in an endangered species is crucial for devising conservation strategies. Here, we examined the extent of population structure and recent evolution of…
Harbour porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, in the Mediterranean Sea and adjacent regions
Fontaine, M. C.
Advances in Marine Biology (2016)
The harbour porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, is one of the best studied cetacean species owing to its common distribution along the coastal waters of the Northern Hemisphere. In European waters, strandings…
Spatially explicit analysis of genome-wide SNPs detects subtle population structure in a mobile marine mammal, the harbor porpoise
Lah, Ljerka; Trense, Daronja; Benke, Harald; Berggren, Per; Gunnlaugsson, Þorvaldur; Lockyer, Christina; Öztürk, Ayaka; Öztürk, Bayram; Pawliczka, Iwona; Roos, Anna; Siebert, Ursula; Skóra, Krzysztof; Víkingsson, Gísli; Tiedemann, Ralph
PLOS ONE (2016)
The population structure of the highly mobile marine mammal, the harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), in the Atlantic shelf waters follows a pattern of significant isolation-by-distance. The population structure of harbor…