Shark Stress Physiology with Jake Jerome

SEASON 2 IS HERE!! We are kicking off the season with Jake Jerome, one of Field School's very own Assistant Director of Program Development and Intern Coordinator. What is shark stress? How do you even go about measuring shark stress? What do we see behaviorally, and what does this mean for them physiologically? Learn more this week with shark physiologist Jake Jerome!

This week we breakdown Jake's article, "Integrating reflexes with physiological measures to evaluate coastal shark stress response to capture" (Jerome et al 2017). Want a copy but can't access it? Send us a message on Instagram or Twitter!

Article Summary:
To better understand physiological stress response to capture, Jerome et al. used conventional blood physiology endpoints such as glucose, lactate, and hematocrit, and assessed 5 reflex responses on sandbar sharks, blacktop sharks, great hammerhead sharks, and nurse sharks species after capture. Their objectives were to test for relationships between physiological variables and hooking duration, shark species, and body size, evaluate for relationships between reflex impairments and hook time, species, and body size, and determine if there were any relationships between the physiological parameter and reflex impairments. Physiological stress response varied widely between the 4 species with nurse sharks constantly displaying the lowest levels of physiological disturbance and great hammerheads displaying the highest. They found that lactate was the most consistent and useful indicator for determining stress in all species. This research is especially important for better understanding the physiological response sharks have to being caught either in recreational catch and release fishing or commercial fisheries.

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