Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears
Polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) are expected to be adversely impacted by a warming Arctic due to melting of the sea‐ice platform from which they hunt ice‐breeding seals. We evaluated the hypothesis that scavenging on stranded large whale carcasses may have facilitated polar bear survival through pas...
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crwiley:10.1002/fee.1963 2024-09-30T14:30:30+00:00 Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears Laidre, Kristin L Stirling, Ian Estes, James A Kochnev, Anatoly Roberts, Jason 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/fee.1963 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Ffee.1963 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/fee.1963 en eng Wiley http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment volume 16, issue 9, page 515-524 ISSN 1540-9295 1540-9309 journal-article 2018 crwiley https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1963 2024-09-05T05:07:58Z Polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) are expected to be adversely impacted by a warming Arctic due to melting of the sea‐ice platform from which they hunt ice‐breeding seals. We evaluated the hypothesis that scavenging on stranded large whale carcasses may have facilitated polar bear survival through past interglacial periods during which sea‐ice was limited by analyzing: (1) present‐day scavenging by polar bears on large whale carcasses; (2) energy values of large whale species; and (3) the ability of polar bears, like the brown bears ( Ursus arctos ) from which they evolved, to quickly store large amounts of lipids and to fast for extended periods. We concluded that scavenging on large whale carcasses likely facilitated survival of polar bears in past interglacial periods when access to seals was reduced. In a future, ice‐impoverished Arctic, whale carcasses are less likely to provide nutritional refuge for polar bears because overharvesting by humans has greatly reduced large whale populations, carcass availability is geographically limited, and climate‐induced sea‐ice loss is projected to occur at a more rapid pace than polar bears have experienced at any previous time in their evolutionary history. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Sea ice Ursus arctos Ursus maritimus Wiley Online Library Arctic Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 16 9 515 524 |
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Wiley Online Library |
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crwiley |
language |
English |
description |
Polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) are expected to be adversely impacted by a warming Arctic due to melting of the sea‐ice platform from which they hunt ice‐breeding seals. We evaluated the hypothesis that scavenging on stranded large whale carcasses may have facilitated polar bear survival through past interglacial periods during which sea‐ice was limited by analyzing: (1) present‐day scavenging by polar bears on large whale carcasses; (2) energy values of large whale species; and (3) the ability of polar bears, like the brown bears ( Ursus arctos ) from which they evolved, to quickly store large amounts of lipids and to fast for extended periods. We concluded that scavenging on large whale carcasses likely facilitated survival of polar bears in past interglacial periods when access to seals was reduced. In a future, ice‐impoverished Arctic, whale carcasses are less likely to provide nutritional refuge for polar bears because overharvesting by humans has greatly reduced large whale populations, carcass availability is geographically limited, and climate‐induced sea‐ice loss is projected to occur at a more rapid pace than polar bears have experienced at any previous time in their evolutionary history. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Laidre, Kristin L Stirling, Ian Estes, James A Kochnev, Anatoly Roberts, Jason |
spellingShingle |
Laidre, Kristin L Stirling, Ian Estes, James A Kochnev, Anatoly Roberts, Jason Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
author_facet |
Laidre, Kristin L Stirling, Ian Estes, James A Kochnev, Anatoly Roberts, Jason |
author_sort |
Laidre, Kristin L |
title |
Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
title_short |
Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
title_full |
Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
title_fullStr |
Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
title_full_unstemmed |
Historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
title_sort |
historical and potential future importance of large whales as food for polar bears |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/fee.1963 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2Ffee.1963 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/fee.1963 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Sea ice Ursus arctos Ursus maritimus |
genre_facet |
Arctic Sea ice Ursus arctos Ursus maritimus |
op_source |
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment volume 16, issue 9, page 515-524 ISSN 1540-9295 1540-9309 |
op_rights |
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1963 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
515 |
op_container_end_page |
524 |
_version_ |
1811635417697484800 |