SGER: Foraging Patterns of Elephant Seals in the Vicinity of the WIlkins Ice Shelf

SGER：威尔金斯冰架附近象海豹的觅食模式

• 批准号: 0840375
• 负责人: Daniel Costa
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Cruz
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-11-15 至 2010-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0840375&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Foraging; Patterns; Elephant; Seals

AbstractLong-lived animals such as elephant seals may endure variation in food resources over large spatial and temporal scales. Understanding how they respond to these fluctuations requires knowledge of how their foraging behavior and habitat utilization varies over time. Advances in satellite-linked data logging have made it possible to correlate the foraging behavior of marine mammals with their physical and chemical environment and provide insight into the mechanisms controlling at-sea movements, foraging behavior and, ultimately, reproductive success of these pelagic predators. In addition, these technological advances enable marine mammals to be used as highly cost-effective platforms from which detailed oceanographic data can be collected on a scale not possible with conventional methods. The project will extend the four-year-time-series collected on the foraging behavior and habitat utilization of southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) foraging in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. It also will extend the oceanographic time-series of CTD profiles collected by the elephant seals foraging from the Livingston Island rookery. Seals have been collecting CTD profiles in the vicinity of the Wilkins Ice Shelf (WIS) since 2005. We thus have a 4 year data set that preceding and during the breakup of the WIS that occurred during March 2008. Deployment of additional tags on seals will provide a unique opportunity to collect oceanographic data after the ice shelf has collapsed.

摘要象海豹这样的长寿动物可能会在大的空间和时间尺度上忍受食物资源的变化。要了解它们如何应对这些波动，需要了解它们的觅食行为和栖息地利用随着时间的推移是如何变化的。卫星数据记录的进展使海洋哺乳动物的觅食行为与其物理和化学环境相关联成为可能，并为控制海洋运动、觅食行为以及最终控制这些远洋捕食者繁殖成功的机制提供了洞察。此外，这些技术进步使海洋哺乳动物能够被用作高成本效益的平台，从这些平台上收集详细的海洋数据的规模是传统方法无法实现的。该项目将延长为期四年的关于南极洲半岛南部象海豹觅食行为和栖息地利用的时间序列。它还将延长从利文斯顿岛觅食的象海豹收集的CTD剖面的海洋时间序列。自2005年以来，海豹一直在威尔金斯冰架(WIS)附近收集CTD剖面。因此，我们有一个四年的数据集，这是在2008年3月发生的WIS拆分之前和期间。在海豹上放置更多的标签将提供一个独特的机会，在冰架坍塌后收集海洋学数据。