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

象海豹这样的长寿动物可以忍受食物资源在大的空间和时间尺度上的变化。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如何随时间变化。与卫星连接的数据记录方面的进展使人们有可能将海洋哺乳动物的觅食行为与其物理和化学环境联系起来，并使人们能够深入了解控制这些远洋捕食者的海上移动、觅食行为以及最终繁殖成功的机制。此外，这些技术进步使海洋哺乳动物能够被用作具有高度成本效益的平台，从而能够以常规方法无法达到的规模收集详细的海洋学数据。该项目将延长四年的时间序列收集南象海豹（Mirounga leonina）觅食行为和栖息地利用在南极西部半岛。它还将扩展从利文斯顿岛栖息地觅食的象海豹收集的CTD剖面的海洋学时间序列。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4年的数据集，在2008年3月发生的WIS崩溃之前和期间。在海豹身上安装更多的标签将为在冰架崩溃后收集海洋学数据提供一个独特的机会。

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.