Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis
Much debate surrounds the importance of top-down and bottom-up effects in the Southern Ocean, where the harvesting of over two million whales in the mid twentieth century is thought to have produced a massive surplus of Antarctic krill. This excess of krill may have allowed populations of other pred...
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2022
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:ee8860b46e3847dbb0299be73bd03b39 2023-05-15T14:03:11+02:00 Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis Joseph I. Hoffman Rebecca S. Chen David L. J. Vendrami Anna J. Paijmans Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra Jaume Forcada 2022-03-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13030541 https://doaj.org/article/ee8860b46e3847dbb0299be73bd03b39 EN eng MDPI AG https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/3/541 https://doaj.org/toc/2073-4425 doi:10.3390/genes13030541 2073-4425 https://doaj.org/article/ee8860b46e3847dbb0299be73bd03b39 Genes, Vol 13, Iss 541, p 541 (2022) Arctocephalus gazella Antarctic fur seal RAD sequencing demographic modelling bottleneck krill surplus hypothesis Genetics QH426-470 article 2022 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13030541 2022-12-31T04:09:00Z Much debate surrounds the importance of top-down and bottom-up effects in the Southern Ocean, where the harvesting of over two million whales in the mid twentieth century is thought to have produced a massive surplus of Antarctic krill. This excess of krill may have allowed populations of other predators, such as seals and penguins, to increase, a top-down hypothesis known as the ‘krill surplus hypothesis’. However, a lack of pre-whaling population baselines has made it challenging to investigate historical changes in the abundance of the major krill predators in relation to whaling. Therefore, we used reduced representation sequencing and a coalescent-based maximum composite likelihood approach to reconstruct the recent demographic history of the Antarctic fur seal, a pinniped that was hunted to the brink of extinction by 18th and 19th century sealers. In line with the known history of this species, we found support for a demographic model that included a substantial reduction in population size around the time period of sealing. Furthermore, maximum likelihood estimates from this model suggest that the recovered, post-sealing population at South Georgia may have been around two times larger than the pre-sealing population. Our findings lend support to the krill surplus hypothesis and illustrate the potential of genomic approaches to shed light on long-standing questions in population biology. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Arctocephalus gazella Southern Ocean Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic Genes 13 3 541 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Arctocephalus gazella Antarctic fur seal RAD sequencing demographic modelling bottleneck krill surplus hypothesis Genetics QH426-470 |
spellingShingle |
Arctocephalus gazella Antarctic fur seal RAD sequencing demographic modelling bottleneck krill surplus hypothesis Genetics QH426-470 Joseph I. Hoffman Rebecca S. Chen David L. J. Vendrami Anna J. Paijmans Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra Jaume Forcada Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
topic_facet |
Arctocephalus gazella Antarctic fur seal RAD sequencing demographic modelling bottleneck krill surplus hypothesis Genetics QH426-470 |
description |
Much debate surrounds the importance of top-down and bottom-up effects in the Southern Ocean, where the harvesting of over two million whales in the mid twentieth century is thought to have produced a massive surplus of Antarctic krill. This excess of krill may have allowed populations of other predators, such as seals and penguins, to increase, a top-down hypothesis known as the ‘krill surplus hypothesis’. However, a lack of pre-whaling population baselines has made it challenging to investigate historical changes in the abundance of the major krill predators in relation to whaling. Therefore, we used reduced representation sequencing and a coalescent-based maximum composite likelihood approach to reconstruct the recent demographic history of the Antarctic fur seal, a pinniped that was hunted to the brink of extinction by 18th and 19th century sealers. In line with the known history of this species, we found support for a demographic model that included a substantial reduction in population size around the time period of sealing. Furthermore, maximum likelihood estimates from this model suggest that the recovered, post-sealing population at South Georgia may have been around two times larger than the pre-sealing population. Our findings lend support to the krill surplus hypothesis and illustrate the potential of genomic approaches to shed light on long-standing questions in population biology. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Joseph I. Hoffman Rebecca S. Chen David L. J. Vendrami Anna J. Paijmans Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra Jaume Forcada |
author_facet |
Joseph I. Hoffman Rebecca S. Chen David L. J. Vendrami Anna J. Paijmans Kanchon K. Dasmahapatra Jaume Forcada |
author_sort |
Joseph I. Hoffman |
title |
Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
title_short |
Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
title_full |
Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
title_fullStr |
Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
title_full_unstemmed |
Demographic Reconstruction of Antarctic Fur Seals Supports the Krill Surplus Hypothesis |
title_sort |
demographic reconstruction of antarctic fur seals supports the krill surplus hypothesis |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13030541 https://doaj.org/article/ee8860b46e3847dbb0299be73bd03b39 |
geographic |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Southern Ocean The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Arctocephalus gazella Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Antarctic Krill Arctocephalus gazella Southern Ocean |
op_source |
Genes, Vol 13, Iss 541, p 541 (2022) |
op_relation |
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/3/541 https://doaj.org/toc/2073-4425 doi:10.3390/genes13030541 2073-4425 https://doaj.org/article/ee8860b46e3847dbb0299be73bd03b39 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/genes13030541 |
container_title |
Genes |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
541 |
_version_ |
1766273740891488256 |