Polar Biol (2008) 31:933–943 DOI 10.1007/s00300-008-0432-1ORIGINAL PAPER Indication of two PaciWc walrus stocks from whole tooth elemental
gens) is considered to be a single panmictic population for management purposes. However, studies on population structuring in this species are limited; in part, because por-tions of the population’s range are often inaccessible. Therefore, alternative and complementary methods for investigating sto...
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.547.6124 http://alaska.usgs.gov/science/biology/walrus/pdfs/Jay_et_al_2008_PolarBiol.pdf |
| Summary: | gens) is considered to be a single panmictic population for management purposes. However, studies on population structuring in this species are limited; in part, because por-tions of the population’s range are often inaccessible. Therefore, alternative and complementary methods for investigating stock structure in the PaciWc walrus are of particular interest. We used measures of elemental concen-trations in whole tooth sections from ICP-MS in a discrimi-nant analysis to investigate evidence of stock separation between walruses from two of three known breeding areas (S.E. Bering, St Lawrence, and Anadyr Gulf). Elemental compositions of teeth from female and male walruses from the S.E. Bering and St Lawrence breeding areas were sig-niWcantly diVerent, providing evidence of separate stocks. We also obtained insights into the potential relation of wal-ruses from non-breeding areas to walruses from these breeding groups based on similarities in their dental elemental proWles. |
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