Southern elephant seal demography

• Other Authors: Acoustic Telemetry Sub-Facility, Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) (hasAssociationWith), Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), Department of the Environment and Energy, Australian Government (hasAssociationWith), IMAS - UTAS (hasAssociationWith), IMAS Data Manager (publisher), Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS) (hasAssociationWith), McMahon, Clive (owner), Volzke, Sophia (pointOfContact), Volzke, Sophia (hasPrincipalInvestigator), Wotherspoon, Simon (coInvestigator)
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of Tasmania, Australia
• Subjects: biota; mark-recapture studies; demographic modelling; predator demography; resight effort; Macquarie Island; breeding population; Mirounga leonina; southern elephant seal; capital breeder; predator ecology; ANIMAL ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR; EARTH SCIENCE; AGRICULTURE; ANIMAL SCIENCE; EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS; CLIMATE INDICATORS; Offshore Islands (Australia) | Offshore Islands (Australia) | Macquarie Island; Antarc*; Antarctic; Australian Antarctic Division; Elephant Seal; Elephant Seals; Southern Elephant Seal; Southern Elephant Seals; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://researchdata.edu.au/southern-elephant-seal-demography/1730169; https://doi.org/10.25959/W2SC-E717

Maintenance and Update Frequency: notPlanned Statement: Between 1951–1965 and 1993–1999 weaned Southern Elephant Seals were captured and marked permanently by hot iron branding. Seals were recorded in regular re-sights varying from daily isthmus searches during the breeding season to ad-hoc sightings outside of active monitoring. Biological data from individual short-term scientific projects include information on the physical condition for a sub-set of pups and adult seals. This record includes the code and materials for analytical tools used to study climate influences on individual survival. Credit The Australian Antarctic Division through the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) supported this research. The study was carried out at Macquarie Island under ethics approval to Harry Burton from the Australian Antarctic Animal Ethics Committee (AAS 2265 & AAS 2794) and the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service. The Southern Ocean has been disproportionately affected by climate change and is therefore an ideal place to study the influence of changing environmental conditions on ecosystems. Changes in the demography of predator populations are indicators of broader shifts in food-web structure, but long-term data are required to study these effects. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Macquarie Island have consistently decreased in population size while all other major populations across the Southern Ocean have recently stabilised or are increasing. Two long-term mark-recapture studies (1956-1967 and 1993-2009) have monitored this population, which provides an opportunity to investigate demographic performance over a range of climatic conditions. This provides insights on individual vital rates of known-age seals from Macquarie Island over extensively long timeseries.