HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations
Copyright Statement
All rights reserved. This publication is intended for use solely by faculty, students, and staff of Nova Southeastern University. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, now known or later developed, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.
Defense Date
7-2003
Document Type
Thesis - NSU Access Only
Degree Name
M.S. Marine Biology
Second Degree Name
M.S. Marine Environmental Sciences
Department
Oceanographic Center
First Advisor
Edward O. Keith
Second Advisor
Ruth Ewing
Third Advisor
Curtis Burney
Abstract
A collaborative project examined the disease status of dolphins that stranded along the coastline of Florida from 1996 to 2002. This study reviewed 68 freshly dead stranded dolphins (57 Tursiops truncatus and 11 others from four species). Analysis of stranding demographics and histopathologic data from the Southeastern United States Stranding Network provided important information on the prevalence of lesions in relation to sex, geographic location, season, and length in T. truncatus. The histopathologic results obtained from the other species were from an extremely small sample size and thus only provided limited insight into the diseases impacting them. Cardiomyocyte degeneration and lymphoid depletion were found in all five species examined. Some of the pathologic findings found in >20% of the T. truncatus tissues examined included pneumonitis, pulmonary fibrosis, edema, angiomatosis, nematodiasis, hepatic fibrosis, hepatocellular atrophy, glomerulonephritis, cardiomyocyte degeneration, cardiac fibrosis, lymphoid depletion, lymphadenitis, lipid depletion, gastritis, and enteritis. There were no trends seen in the histopathologic data related to sex, geographic area, or season. There were however differences in the prevalence of some lesions in relation to length class in the lung, spleen, kidney, and heart. There was a significant difference between length classes in the prevalence of the following lesions, angiomatosis (p=0.0062) in the lung, lymphoid depletion (0.043) in the spleen, glomerulonephritis (p=0.00009) in the kidney, and cardiomyocyte degeneration (p=0.022) and fibrosis (p=0.0021) in the heart, with a tendency towards more lesions in larger animals. The results of this investigation suggest that these lesions are more prevalent in larger, presumed to be older, stranded T. truncatus. The histopathologic results presented here provide important information on the diseases impacting T. truncatus around Florida, which can be used as a basis for future comparisons.
NSUWorks Citation
Ali P. Miller. 2003. A Descriptive Epidemiological Study of Stranded Dolphins Along the Florida Coastline. Master's thesis. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, Oceanographic Center. (290)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_stuetd/290.