ArticlePloS one2016
Severe Bone Loss as Part of the Life History Strategy of Bowhead Whales.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Beginner's Guide for Using Bone in Marine Mammal Research.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Guideline
- Population Consequences of Physiological Responses to Stressors: A Road Map for Endocrine Data.Integrative and comparative biology · 2026Article
- Pre- and Postnatal Ontogeny of Brain Size in Beluga and Bowhead Whales.Brain, behavior and evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Adaptations to marine environments and the evolution of slow-paced life histories in endotherms.Nature communications · 2025Article
- WasPeerJ · 2025Article
- Cetacean tongue mobility and function: A comparative review.Journal of anatomy · 2023Review
- A really big fossil whale.Nature · 2023Article
- Accelerated evolution and diversifying selection drove the adaptation of cetacean bone microstructure.BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- Structure of the external auditory meatus of the Bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) and its relation to their seasonal migration.Journal of anatomy · 2019Article
- Evolutionary aspects of the development of teeth and baleen in the bowhead whale.Journal of anatomy · 2017Article
- Beyond thermoregulation: metabolic function of cetacean blubber in migrating bowhead and beluga whales.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2017Article
- Revision of "PeerJ · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The evolution of baleen constituted a major evolutionary change that made it possible for baleen whales to reach enormous body sizes while filter feeding on tiny organisms and migrating over tremendous distances. Bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) live in the Arctic where the annual cycle of increasing and decreasing ice cover affects their habitat, prey, and migration. During the nursing period, bowheads grow rapidly; but between weaning and approximately year 5, bowhead whales display sustained baleen and head growth while limiting growth in the rest of their bodies. During this period, they withdraw resources from the skeleton, in particular the ribs, which may lose 40% of bone mass. Such dramatic changes in bones of immature mammals are rare, although fossil cetaceans between 40 and 50 million years ago show an array of rib specializations that include bone loss and are usually interpreted as related to buoyancy control.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.