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

尽管北极和北部水域支持着丰富多样的生产性海洋生态系统，但人们对气候变暖对其生物成分的影响知之甚少。海洋顶级捕食者代表了海洋食物网和资源可用性的短期和长期变化的可靠指标，从而为低营养水平的生态方面提供了有用的见解。在接下来的五年里，我和我的学生将致力于预测环境特征（种群密度、栖息地质量、资源可用性）和个体间差异（行为、生理）如何影响海洋哺乳动物种群的生活史特征（生长、生存、繁殖）。为了实现这些目标，该项目将建立并发展一项长期的个体捕获-标记-再捕获海洋哺乳动物种群的研究，这里是圣劳伦斯河口斑海豹。通过对个体生态特征（觅食策略、饮食组成）和种群生态（种群状况、密度、年龄结构）的综合研究，确定亲本对后代生存乃至个体适应度的重要表型特征。因此，我们将研究个体对环境变化的反应如何最终塑造人口结构。该研究项目将有助于进一步了解海洋捕食动物对资源时空变化的适应策略及其在种群动态方面的后果。这种对生命史策略所涉及的机制的了解对于监测和保护野生海洋种群是至关重要的，特别是当它涉及到预测长期环境变化对极地海洋生态系统的影响时。拟议的研究将涉及一名博士，三名硕士和五名理学士学生。这些学生将接受有关野生海豹的正确捕获、处理和采样技术的实地培训，以及从整体角度记录和解释种群内的生态和个体变化。

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.