Skip to main content
Advertisement

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • For library administrators
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Experimental Biology
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

supporting biologistsinspiring biology

Journal of Experimental Biology

  • Log in
Advanced search

RSS  Twitter  Facebook  YouTube  

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • For library administrators
OUTSIDE JEB
An off-the-(nar)whal stress response
Matthew D. Regan
Journal of Experimental Biology 2018 221: jeb169904 doi: 10.1242/jeb.169904 Published 7 March 2018
Matthew D. Regan
University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Matthew D. Regan
  • For correspondence: mdregan@wisc.edu
  • Article
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Embedded Image

The thing about unicorns is, they're hard to find. Legend has it that merely glimpsing the elusive equine requires distant travel to faraway lands, and even then you need luck on your side. Slightly easier would be to locate a narwhal, the toothed whale whose left canine has turned into a unicorn-like tusk protruding from its face. In fact, when Norway's King Frederick III (1609–1670) was regretfully informed that his new throne could not be constructed from unicorn horns as requested, he agreed to narwhal tusks instead. But narwhals are still hard to find, requiring distant travel to the most northern of seas. So, when Terrie Williams set out with her international team of collaborators to investigate the narwhal's physiological stress response, she journeyed more than 6400 km from her University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, base to eastern Greenland's Scoresby Sound.

The team completed the study over two consecutive Augusts, when the weather was agreeable and the indigenous Greenlanders’ annual hunt was on. This ensured the researchers found sufficient narwhal to investigate their behavioural, biomechanical, cardiovascular and energetic responses to escape situations. The narwhal's elusiveness and far-flung locale meant that such measurements had never been made before.

Once there, the team suctioned submersible electrocardiograph–accelerometer–depth recorders to the backs of net-entagled - and thus stressed - narwhal. The data loggers then remained in place for up to 3 days of measurements before sliding from the deep-divers’ backs, ready for retrieval. So, how cool was the narwhal under stress?

In some ways, very cool; in others, not so much. Escaping narwhal rapidly depressed their heart rate by 92% while simultaneously doubling their swimming stroke frequency and elevating their energy expenditure 6-fold compared with normal swimming conditions. This is unlike other whales’ stress responses and is frankly paradoxical. To appreciate the paradox, one must first understand the two types of mammalian stress response: fight or flight, and freezing. A fight or flight response sees the animal's heart, breathing and metabolic rates elevated to ensure about-to-be-used muscles receive sufficient supplies of blood and oxygen. Conversely, a freezing response sees these rates depressed to ensure the animal stays put. These responses are incongruent, and that incongruence travels all the way to the separate regions of the brain that trigger them. Yet, here was the narwhal, simultaneously freezing and fleeing.

The researchers reckon the abnormal stress response is caused by these particular stressful situations, which are novel for the narwhal. Specifically, these situations trigger a complex medley of signals from the narwhal's diving, exercise and neurocognitive fear responses. These signals can oppose one another, and that's not good. For example, diving typically slows heart rate, while exercise elevates it. And in rats, simultaneously inducing these signals under experimental conditions promptly kills them. While the narwhal isn't dying, a response that simultaneously reduces heart rate and elevates energetic demand surely threatens tissue oxygenation and thus homeostasis. And, as rapidly changing Arctic conditions expose the once-isolated species to more predation, hunting by humans, shipping and seismic activity, narwhal will find themselves more frequently in these situations.

In the middle ages, narwhal tusks were seen as entry-level unicorn horns, marketed by Vikings and other northern traders as a practical means of accessing magical powers. One such power was the tusk's ability to purify poisoned water. Whether this also allowed warming water to be magically cooled is unknown, but this power would certainly prove handy for 21st century narwhals. Without it, their adjustment to a changing world – like everyone else's – will hinge on some combination of genetic adaptation, phenotypic plasticity and a bit of luck.

  • © 2018. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

References

    1. Williams, T. M.,
    2. Blackwell, S. B.,
    3. Richter, B.,
    4. Sinding, M. H. S. and
    5. Heide-Jørgensen, M. P.
    (2017). Paradoxical escape responses by narwhals (Monodon monoceros). Science 358, 1328-1331.
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
Previous ArticleNext Article
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

This Issue

 Download PDF

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Journal of Experimental Biology.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
An off-the-(nar)whal stress response
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Journal of Experimental Biology
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Journal of Experimental Biology web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
OUTSIDE JEB
An off-the-(nar)whal stress response
Matthew D. Regan
Journal of Experimental Biology 2018 221: jeb169904 doi: 10.1242/jeb.169904 Published 7 March 2018
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
OUTSIDE JEB
An off-the-(nar)whal stress response
Matthew D. Regan
Journal of Experimental Biology 2018 221: jeb169904 doi: 10.1242/jeb.169904 Published 7 March 2018

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign in to email alerts with your email address

Article navigation

  • Top
  • Article
    • References
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF

Related articles

Cited by...

More in this TOC section

  • The ultimate defense against piranhas
  • Seeing the height at the end of the (wind) tunnel
  • A round of applause for butterfly wings
Show more OUTSIDE JEB

Similar articles

Other journals from The Company of Biologists

Development

Journal of Cell Science

Disease Models & Mechanisms

Biology Open

Advertisement

Predicting the Future: Species Survival in a Changing World

Read our new special issue exploring the significant role of experimental biology in assessing and predicting the susceptibility or resilience of species to future, human-induced environmental change.


Big Biology Podcast - Hollie Putnam and coral bleaching

Catch the next JEB-sponsored episode of the Big Biology Podcast where Art and Marty talk to Hollie Putnam about the causes of coral bleaching and the basic biology of corals in the hope of selectively breeding corals that can better tolerate future ocean conditions.

Read Hollie's Review on the subject, which is featured in our current special issue. 


Stark trade-offs and elegant solutions in arthropod visual systems

Many elegant eye specializations that evolved in response to visual challenges continue to be discovered. A new Review by Meece et al. summarises exciting solutions evolved by insects and other arthropods in response to specific visual challenges.


Head bobbing gives pigeons a sense of perspective

Pigeons might look goofy with their head-bobbing walk, but it turns out that the ungainly head manoeuvre allows the birds to judge distance.

Articles

  • Accepted manuscripts
  • Issue in progress
  • Latest complete issue
  • Issue archive
  • Archive by article type
  • Special issues
  • Subject collections
  • Interviews
  • Sign up for alerts

About us

  • About JEB
  • Editors and Board
  • Editor biographies
  • Travelling Fellowships
  • Grants and funding
  • Journal Meetings
  • Workshops
  • The Company of Biologists
  • Journal news

For Authors

  • Submit a manuscript
  • Aims and scope
  • Presubmission enquiries
  • Article types
  • Manuscript preparation
  • Cover suggestions
  • Editorial process
  • Promoting your paper
  • Open Access
  • Outstanding paper prize
  • Biology Open transfer

Journal Info

  • Journal policies
  • Rights and permissions
  • Media policies
  • Reviewer guide
  • Sign up for alerts

Contact

  • Contact JEB
  • Subscriptions
  • Advertising
  • Feedback

 Twitter   YouTube   LinkedIn

© 2021   The Company of Biologists Ltd   Registered Charity 277992