Foraging behaviour of southern elephant seals over the Kerguelen Plateau

• Published in: Marine Ecology Progress Series
• Main Authors: O'Toole, Malcolm, Hindell, Mark A., Charrassin, Jean-Benoit, Guinet, Christophe
• Other Authors: Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies Hobart (IMAS), University of Tasmania Hobart (UTAS), Processus de couplage à Petite Echelle, Ecosystèmes et Prédateurs Supérieurs (PEPS), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL), Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Institut Polytechnique de Paris (IP Paris)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: CCSD 2014
• Subjects: Diving behaviour; Temperature; Shelf break; Fisheries management; Sea-surface height; 3-dimensional utilisation; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Austral; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands; Elephant Seal; Elephant Seals; Mirounga leonina; Southern Elephant Seals
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00998949; https://hal.science/hal-00998949v1/document; https://hal.science/hal-00998949v1/file/m502p281.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10709

International audience A total of 79 (37 juvenile male, 42 adult female) southern elephant seals Mirounga leonina from the Kerguelen Islands were tracked between 2004 and 2009. Area-restricted search patterns and dive behaviour were established from location data gathered by CTD satelliterelayed data loggers. At-sea movements of the seals demonstrated that >40% of the juvenile elephant seal population tagged use the Kerguelen Plateau during the austral winter. Search activity increased where temperature at 200 m depth was lower, when closer to the shelf break, and, to a lesser extent, where sea-surface height anomalies were higher. However, while this model explained the observed data (F1,242 = 88.23, p < 0.0001), bootstrap analysis revealed poor predictive capacity (r2 = 0.264). There appears to be potential overlap between the seals and commercial fishing operations in the region. This study may therefore support ecosystem-based fisheries management of the region, with the aim of maintaining ecological integrity of the shelf.