Individual and aseasonal variation in habitat use, foraging strategies and reproductive performances of marine top predators

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Although Arctic and Northern waters support a significant diversity of productive marine ecosystems, the impact of climate warming on its biotic components is poorly known. Marine top predators represent reliable indicators of short- and long- term changes in marine food-webs and resource availability, thus providing useful insights into ecological aspects of lower trophic levels. During the next five years, my students and I will contribute to predict how environmental characteristics (population density, habitat quality, resource availability) and interindividual differences (behaviour, physiology) may affect life history traits (growth, survival, reproduction) in marine mammal populations. In order to fulfill these objectives, this program will set up and develop a long-term individual capture-mark-recapture study of a marine mammal population, here the Saint Lawrence estuarine harbour seals. Through the combined studies of individual ecological characteristics (foraging strategies, diet composition) and population ecology (population status, density & age structure), we will determine the important phenotypic characteristics of parents on offspring survival and ultimately individual fitness. Hence, we will investigate how individual response to environmental change may ultimately shape population structure. This research program will lead to further understand the adaptive strategies of marine predators to spatial and temporal variability of resources and the consequences in terms of population dynamics. Such understanding of the mechanisms involved in life-history strategies is crucial for the monitoring and conservation of wild marine populations, especially when it relates to predicting the impact of environmental change on polar marine ecosystems over an extended period. The proposed research will involve one PhD, three MSc and five BSc students. These students will be trained in the field with regard to proper capture, handling and sampling techniques of wild seals, as well as documenting and interpreting ecological and individual variation within a population from a holistic point of view.