A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals
Cod, harp seal and minke whale are the main top predators in the Barents Sea ecosystem. In the last decade, the abundance of cod has increased considerably, and is at a record high level. In spite of this, the growth and condition of cod has remained rather stable, although some decrease is seen in...
Published in: | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 https://doaj.org/article/889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 2023-05-15T15:38:33+02:00 A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals Bjarte eBogstad Harald eGjøsæter Tore eHaug Ulf eLindstrøm 2015-03-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 https://doaj.org/article/889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 EN eng Frontiers Media S.A. http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-701X 2296-701X doi:10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 https://doaj.org/article/889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 3 (2015) Minke Whale competition Top predators Barents Sea Harp seal : Cod Evolution QH359-425 Ecology QH540-549.5 article 2015 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 2022-12-31T14:10:15Z Cod, harp seal and minke whale are the main top predators in the Barents Sea ecosystem. In the last decade, the abundance of cod has increased considerably, and is at a record high level. In spite of this, the growth and condition of cod has remained rather stable, although some decrease is seen in size at age of large, mature cod. During the same period, the abundance of harp seals has declined whereas the minke whale stock has been at a stable level. The body condition (blubber thickness) of these two mammal stocks has, however, decreased, with the strongest decrease observed for harp seals. A possible hypothesis for explaining this is that cod outperform the marine mammal stocks in the competition for food. The main advantages for cod are most likely larger availability of food (mainly capelin) during winter-spring than for marine mammals, as well as a wider range of prey species being available to cod than to marine mammals. Harp seals are more dependent on prey items found close to the ice edge than the other two predator stocks are, which could partly explain why the performance of harp seals is worse than that of the two other main top predators in the area. Article in Journal/Newspaper Barents Sea Harp Seal minke whale Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Barents Sea Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 3 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Minke Whale competition Top predators Barents Sea Harp seal : Cod Evolution QH359-425 Ecology QH540-549.5 |
spellingShingle |
Minke Whale competition Top predators Barents Sea Harp seal : Cod Evolution QH359-425 Ecology QH540-549.5 Bjarte eBogstad Harald eGjøsæter Tore eHaug Ulf eLindstrøm A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
topic_facet |
Minke Whale competition Top predators Barents Sea Harp seal : Cod Evolution QH359-425 Ecology QH540-549.5 |
description |
Cod, harp seal and minke whale are the main top predators in the Barents Sea ecosystem. In the last decade, the abundance of cod has increased considerably, and is at a record high level. In spite of this, the growth and condition of cod has remained rather stable, although some decrease is seen in size at age of large, mature cod. During the same period, the abundance of harp seals has declined whereas the minke whale stock has been at a stable level. The body condition (blubber thickness) of these two mammal stocks has, however, decreased, with the strongest decrease observed for harp seals. A possible hypothesis for explaining this is that cod outperform the marine mammal stocks in the competition for food. The main advantages for cod are most likely larger availability of food (mainly capelin) during winter-spring than for marine mammals, as well as a wider range of prey species being available to cod than to marine mammals. Harp seals are more dependent on prey items found close to the ice edge than the other two predator stocks are, which could partly explain why the performance of harp seals is worse than that of the two other main top predators in the area. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bjarte eBogstad Harald eGjøsæter Tore eHaug Ulf eLindstrøm |
author_facet |
Bjarte eBogstad Harald eGjøsæter Tore eHaug Ulf eLindstrøm |
author_sort |
Bjarte eBogstad |
title |
A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
title_short |
A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
title_full |
A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
title_fullStr |
A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
title_full_unstemmed |
A review of the battle for food in the Barents Sea: Cod vs. marine mammals |
title_sort |
review of the battle for food in the barents sea: cod vs. marine mammals |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 https://doaj.org/article/889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 |
geographic |
Barents Sea |
geographic_facet |
Barents Sea |
genre |
Barents Sea Harp Seal minke whale |
genre_facet |
Barents Sea Harp Seal minke whale |
op_source |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 3 (2015) |
op_relation |
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029/full https://doaj.org/toc/2296-701X 2296-701X doi:10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 https://doaj.org/article/889626a67c7b4fd68e1f15e1ca914c57 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2015.00029 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
3 |
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1766369592577359872 |