James L Bodkin (Former Employee)

The protracted recovery of some bird and mammal populations in western Prince William Sound (WPWS), Alaska, and the persistence of spilled 'Exxon Valdez' oil in intertidal sediments, suggests a pathway of exposure to consumers that occupy nearshore habitats. To evaluate the hypothesis that sea otter (Enhydra lutris) foraging allows access to lingering oil, we contrast spatial relations...

Development of blood leukocyte gene transcript profiles has the potential to expand condition assessments beyond those currently available to evaluate wildlife health, including sea otters Enhydra lutris, both individually and as populations. The 10 genes targeted in our study represent multiple physiological systems that play a role in immuno-modulation, inflammation, cell protection...

Gene transcription analysis for diagnosing or monitoring wildlife health requires the ability to distinguish pathophysiological change from natural variation. Herein, we describe methodology for the development of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays to measure differential transcript levels of multiple immune function genes in the sea otter (Enhydra lutris)...

Studies of consumer-resource interactions suggest that individual diet specialisation is empirically widespread and theoretically important to the organisation and dynamics of populations and communities. We used weighted networks to analyze the resource use by sea otters, testing three alternative models for how individual diet specialisation may arise. As expected, individual...

From March 21, 2010 to March 24, 2010, a winter marine bird and mammal skiff-based survey along the coast of Kenai Fjords National Park (KEFJ) was completed. This was the second winter survey completed for KEFJ since 2008. The primary objectives of the SWAN winter surveys are to characterize the species composition, density and distribution of the overwintering marine ducks prior to...

Sea otters in western Prince William Sound (WPWS) and elsewhere in the Gulf of Alaska suffered widespread mortality as a result of oiling following the 1989 T/V Exxon Valdez oil spill. Following the spill, extensive efforts have been directed toward identifying and understanding long-term consequences of the spill and the process of recovery. We conducted annual aerial surveys of sea...