Stress-omics: A multi-omics approach to discriminate stress states in a marine mammal

Repeated or chronic stress, such as that caused by anthropogenic activity and environmental disturbance, may affect animal health and fitness and contribute to population declines by consequential changes in food webs. However, the physiological impacts of repeated stress have not been extensively studied in wild animals, hindering development of biomarkers that conservation practitioners can use to identify chronically stressed individuals. Baseline endocrine measurements are commonly used for stress diagnosis, but they may be less robust indicators of stress than their downstream molecular mediators. We used a non-targeted, multi-omics approach to profile global changes in target gene and protein abundance in response to acute and repeated stress in northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris)