Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:39:39.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spatial and temporal patterns of changes in condition of southern elephant seals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2015

Trevor McIntyre ,
Ashleigh Donaldson  and
Marthán N. Bester
Trevor McIntyre*
Affiliation:
Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa
Ashleigh Donaldson
Affiliation:
Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa
Marthán N. Bester
Affiliation:
Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa
*
tmcintyre@zoology.up.ac.za
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study of foraging success in marine predators is complicated by a lack of direct observations and relies mostly on proxy measures of foraging success. This study assessed spatial and temporal patterns of changes in body condition of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Marion Island, based on changes in drift rates (which are related to gains and losses of blubber). Seals showed substantial individual variation in condition changes throughout migrations, which was not explained by age-, sex- or reproductive stages. Substantial variation was also evident in the spatial patterns of condition changes, although an area south of the Antarctic Polar Front (APF) between 10°E and 35°E was evidently associated with moderate, yet consistent gains in condition. Seals that foraged more distantly from Marion Island displayed more extreme gains and losses in condition, suggesting a possible risk/reward trade-off associated with foraging further afield versus closer to the island. Increased condition was consistently negatively related to sea surface temperature, suggesting that seals were generally improving their condition faster in cooler water masses. These results support previous studies predicting that continued warming of the Southern Ocean will result in changes to the habitat use patterns exhibited by southern elephant seals at sea.

Keywords

body conditionbuoyancydrift rateforaging successMirounga leoninasatellite-relay data logger
Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 81 - 90
Check for updates
Copyright
© Antarctic Science Ltd 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ansorge, I.J. & Lutjeharms, J.R.E. 2003. Eddies originating at the Southwest Indian Ridge. Journal of Marine Systems, 39, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, B., Hindell, M., Bester, M., Trathan, P., Jonsen, I., Staniland, I., Oosthuizen, W.C., Wege, M. & Lea, M.-A. 2015. Return customers: foraging site fidelity and the effect of environmental variability in wide-ranging Antarctic fur seals. PLoS ONE, 10, 10.1371/journal.pone.0120888.Google Scholar
Bailleul, F., Cotté, C. & Guinet, C. 2010. Mesoscale eddies as foraging area of a deep-diving predator, the southern elephant seal. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 408, 251–264.Google Scholar
Bailleul, F., Charrassin, J., Monestiez, P., Roquet, F., Biuw, M. & Guinet, C. 2007. Successful foraging zones of southern elephant seals from the Kerguelen Islands in relation to oceanographic conditions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B362, 2169–2181.Google Scholar
Bester, M.N. 1988. Chemical restraint of Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals. South African Journal of Wildlife Research, 18, 57–60.Google Scholar
Bester, M.N., de Bruyn, P.J.N., Oosthuizen, W.C., Tosh, C.A., McIntyre, T., Reisinger, R.R., Postma, M., van der Merwe, D.S. & Wege, M. 2011. The Marine Mammal Programme at the Prince Edward Islands: 38 years of research. African Journal of Marine Science, 33, 511–521.Google Scholar
Bestley, S., Jonsen, I.D., Hindell, M.A., Guinet, C. & Charrassin, J.B. 2013. Integrative modelling of animal movement: incorporating in situ habitat and behavioural information for a migratory marine predator. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B280, 2012–2262.Google Scholar
Biuw, M., McConnell, B.J., Bradshaw, C.J.A., Burton, H.R. & Fedak, M.A. 2003. Blubber and buoyancy: monitoring the body condition of free-ranging seals using simple dive characteristics. Journal of Experimental Biology, 206, 3405–3423.Google Scholar
Biuw, M., Boehme, L., Guinet, C., Hindell, M., Costa, D., Charrassin, J.B., Roquet, F., Baileul, F., Meredith, M., Thorpe, S., Tremblay, Y., McDonald, B., Park, Y.H., Rintou, S.R., Bindoff, N., Goebel, M., Crocker, D., Lovell, P., Nicholson, J., Monks, F. & Fedak, M.A. 2007. Variations in behavior and condition of a Southern Ocean top predator in relation to in situ oceanographic conditions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America, 104, 13 705–13 710.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boehme, L., Lovell, P., Biuw, M., Roquet, F., Nicholson, J., Thorpe, S.E., Meredith, M.P. & Fedak, M. 2009. Technical note: animal-borne CTD-satellite relay data loggers for real-time oceanographic data collection. Ocean Science, 5, 685–695.Google Scholar
Burnham, K.P. & Anderson, D.R. 2002. Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media, 520 pp.Google Scholar
Clinton, W.L. 1994. Sexual selection and growth in male northern elephant seals. In Le Boeuf, B.J. & Laws, R.M., eds. Elephant seals: population ecology, behavior, and physiology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 154–168.Google Scholar
Crocker, D.E., Le Boeuf, B.J. & Costa, D.P. 1997. Drift diving in female northern elephant seals: implications for food processing. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 75, 27–39.Google Scholar
de Bruyn, P.J.N., Tosh, C.A., Bester, M.N., Cameron, E.Z., McIntyre, T. & Wilkinson, I.S. 2011. Sex at sea: alternative mating system in an extremely polygynous mammal. Animal Behaviour, 82, 445–451.Google Scholar
Fedak, M. A., Arnbom, T.A, McConnell, B.J., Chambers, C., Boyd, I.L., Harwood, J. & McCann, T.S. 1994. Expenditure, investment, and acquisition of energy in southern elephant seals. In Le Boeuf, B.J. & Laws, R.M., eds. Elephant seals: population ecology, behavior, and physiology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 354–373.Google Scholar
Guinet, C., Vacquié-garcia, J., Picard, B., Bessigneul, G., Lebras, Y., Dragon, A.C., Viviant, M., Arnould, J.P.Y. & Bailleul, F. 2014. Southern elephant seal foraging success in relation to temperature and light conditions : insight into prey distribution. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 499, 285–301.Google Scholar
Hooker, S.K., Biuw, M., McConnell, B.J., Miller, P.J.O. & Sparling, C.E. 2007. Bio-logging science: logging and relaying physical and biological data using animal-attached tags. Deep-Sea Research II, 54, 177–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jonker, F.C. & Bester, M.N. 1998. Seasonal movements and foraging areas of adult southern female elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, from Marion Island. Antarctic Science, 10, 21–30.Google Scholar
Liaw, A. & Wiener, M. 2002. Classification and regression by randomForest. R News, 2/3:18-22. [online] http:// CRAN.R-projea.org/doc/Rnews/.Google Scholar
Massie, P.P., McIntyre, T., Ryan, P.G., Bester, M.N., Bornemann, H. & Ansorge, I.J. 2015. The role of eddies in the diving behaviour of female southern elephant seals. Polar Biology, 10.1007/s00300-015-1782-0.Google Scholar
McIntyre, T. 2014. Trends in tagging of marine mammals: a review of marine mammal biologging studies. African Journal of Marine Science, 36, 409–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, T., Bornemann, H., Plötz, J., Tosh, C.A. & Bester, M.N. 2011a. Water column use and forage strategies of female southern elephant seals from Marion Island. Marine Biology, 158, 2125–2139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, T., Bornemann, H., Plötz, J, Tosh, C.A. & Bester, M.N. 2012. Deep divers in even deeper seas: habitat use of male southern elephant seals from Marion Island. Antarctic Science, 24, 561–570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, T., Ansorge, I., Bornemann, H., Plötz, J., Tosh, C.A. & Bester, M.N. 2011b. Elephant seal diving behaviour is influenced by ocean temperature: implications for climate change impacts on an ocean predator. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 441, 257–272.Google Scholar
Mitani, Y., Andrews, R.D., Sato, K., Kato, A., Naito, Y. & Costa, D.P. 2009. Three-dimensional resting behaviour of northern elephant seals: drifting like a falling leaf. Biology Letters, 6, 163–166.Google Scholar
Nel, D.C., Lutjeharms, J.R.E., Pakhomov, E.A., Ansorge, I.J., Ryan, P.G. & Klages, N.T.W. 2001. Exploitation of mesoscale oceanographic features by grey-headed albatross Thalassarche chrysostoma in the southern Indian Ocean. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 217, 15–26.Google Scholar
O’Toole, M., Hindell, M.A., Charrassin, J.-B. & Guinet, C. 2014. Foraging behaviour of southern elephant seals over the Kerguelen Plateau. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 502, 281–294.Google Scholar
Pinheiro, J., Bates, D., DebRoy, S., Sarkar, D. & R Development Core Team. 2012. nlme: linear and nonlinear mixed effects models. R package version 3.1-104, http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=nlme.Google Scholar
R Core Team 2012. R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org.Google Scholar
Robinson, P.W., Simmons, S.E., Crocker, D.E. & Costa, D.P. 2010. Measurements of foraging success in a highly pelagic marine predator, the northern elephant seal. Journal of Animal Ecology, 79, 1146–1156.Google Scholar
Robinson, P.W., Costa, D.P., Crocker, D.E., Pablo Gallo-Reynoso, J., Champagne, C.D., Fowler, M.A., Goetch, C., Goetz, K.T., Hassrick, J.L., Hückstädt, L.A., Kuhn, C.E., Maresh, J.L., Maxwell, S.M., McDonald, B.I., Peterson, S.H., Simmons, S.E., Teutschel, N.M., Villegas-Amtmann, S. & Yoda, K. 2012. Foraging behavior and success of a mesopelagic predator in the northeast Pacific Ocean: insights from a data-rich species, the northern elephant seal. PloS ONE, 7, 10.1371/journal.pone.0036728.Google Scholar
Roemmich, D., Church, J., Gilson, J., Monselesan, D., Sutton, P. & Wijffels, S. 2015. Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006. Nature Climate Change, 5, 240–245.Google Scholar
Schick, R.S., New, L.F., Thomas, L., Costa, D.P., Hindell, M.A., McMahon, C.R., Robinson, P.W., Simmons, S.E., Thums, M., Harwood, J. & Clark, J.S. 2013. Estimating resource acquisition and at-sea body condition of a marine predator. Journal of Animal Ecology, 82, 1300–1315.Google Scholar
Sokolov, S. & Rintoul, S.R. 2007. On the relationship between fronts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and surface chlorophyll concentrations in the Southern Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, 112, 10.1029/2006JC004072.Google Scholar
Swart, S., Speich, S., Ansorge, I.J. & Lutjeharms, J.R.E. 2010. An altimetry-based gravest empirical mode south of Africa. 1. Development and validation. Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, 115, 10.1029/2009JC005299.Google Scholar
Thums, M., Bradshaw, C.J.A. & Hindell, M.A. 2008a. Tracking changes in relative body composition of southern elephant seals using swim speed data. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 370, 249–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thums, M., Bradshaw, C.J.A. & Hindell, M.A. 2008b. A validated approach for supervised dive classification in diving vertebrates. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology, 363, 75–83.Google Scholar
Webb, P.M., Crocker, D.E., Blackwell, S.B., Costa, D.P. & Le Boeuf, B.J. 1998. Effects of buoyancy on the diving behavior of northern elephant seals. Journal of Experimental Biology, 201, 2349–2358.Google Scholar
Wood, S.N. 2006. Generalized additive models: an introduction with R. Texts in statistical science. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/CRC.Google Scholar
Woodward, G. & Hildrew, A.G. 2002. Food web structure in riverine landscapes. Freshwater Biology, 47, 777–798.Google Scholar