ABSTRACT

Between 1985 and 2015, the number of published research on pinniped health, disease, or immune function has increased by roughly 1400%.1 This trend might be due to the expansion and specialization of the marine mammalogy community. However, it is also likely to reflect growing understanding about the importance of pinniped health in the context of environmental changes. Despite mounting interest there is still a noticeable bias in our knowledge, as not all species are equally represented in publications. Roughly a third of the published studies on pinniped health, disease or immune function are focused on the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) followed by harbor seals (Phoca vitulina), grey seals (Halichoerus

1 Unbiased search of published papers conducted on ISI Web of Knowledge and PubMed Feb 2016. Search string: (pinniped) AND ((disease) OR (pathogen) OR (health) OR (immune)).