The role of juvenile foraging ecology and growth in the evolution of life history strategies for southern elephant seals ...

• Main Author: Field, IC
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: University Of Tasmania 2023
• Subjects: Southern Ocean; Elephant Seals; Macquarie Island; Mirounga leonina; Southern Elephant Seals
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25959/23213912.v1; https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_role_of_juvenile_foraging_ecology_and_growth_in_the_evolution_of_life_history_strategies_for_southern_elephant_seals/23213912/1

In highly dynamic and unpredictable environments such as the Southern Ocean, species that have evolved behaviours that reduce the effects of intra-specific competition may have a selective advantage. This is particularly true when juveniles face disadvantages when foraging due to morphological or physiological limitation, such as in the case of many marine mammals. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) are a major consumer of biomass in the Southern Ocean with a global distribution. Recent modelling of the Macquarie Island population concluded that juvenile survival is a key parameter in influencing the rates of population change and as an important demographic component of the population. Resource limitation has been suggested as the primary reason for the change in numbers of these populations and this coupled with the importance of juvenile rates of survival influencing population change may provide some insight into explaining any reduction in juvenile survival. Until now, little has been known ...