Grey Seal teeth as Indicators of Climate Variability ...

• Main Author: Hammill, M.O.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: ASC 2004 - K - Theme session 2024
• Subjects: Fisheries and aquaculture; Technologies and data; The sea and human culture and societies; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17895/ices.pub.25349428; https://ices-library.figshare.com/articles/conference_contribution/Grey_Seal_teeth_as_Indicators_of_Climate_Variability/25349428

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.The impacts of environmental changes on life history parameters of marine mammals are poorly understood. This may be due to the large spatial scales that must be examined to describe environmental changes and their impacts on biological aspects of most species. Annual growth layers in the teeth of marine mammals have long been used to determine age of individual animals. In some species, changes in tooth structure also provide a record of life-history changes such as age at sexual maturity, or records of major climatic events eg El Nino. In this study, growth layer development in longitudinal sections (N=400) of Northwest Atlantic grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) canine teeth were examined. Age, sex, and a large scale environmental variable, Minimum Cold Intermediate Layer Temperature (MCILT) all had a significant effect (p<0.05) on the thickness of the first Growth Layer Group (GLG1), while only sex had a significant effect on the thickness ...