Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea
Weddell Sea hydrography and circulation is driven by influx of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at its eastern margin. Entrainment and upwelling of this high-nutrient, oxygen-depleted water mass within the Weddell Gyre also supports the mesopelagic ecosystem...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:2972216 2023-05-15T14:03:27+02:00 Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea Biuw, Martin Nøst, Ole Anders Stien, Audun Zhou, Qin Lydersen, Christian Kovacs, Kit M. 2010-11-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21072199 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21072199 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 Biuw et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2010 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 2013-09-03T06:55:35Z Weddell Sea hydrography and circulation is driven by influx of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at its eastern margin. Entrainment and upwelling of this high-nutrient, oxygen-depleted water mass within the Weddell Gyre also supports the mesopelagic ecosystem within the gyre and the rich benthic community along the Antarctic shelf. We used Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Satellite Relay Data Loggers (CTD-SRDLs) to examine the importance of hydrographic variability, ice cover and season on the movements and diving behavior of southern elephant seals in the eastern Weddell Sea region during their overwinter feeding trips from Bouvetøya. We developed a model describing diving depth as a function of local time of day to account for diel variation in diving behavior. Seals feeding in pelagic ice-free waters during the summer months displayed clear diel variation, with daytime dives reaching 500-1500 m and night-time targeting of the subsurface temperature and salinity maxima characteristic of CDW around 150–300 meters. This pattern was especially clear in the Weddell Cold and Warm Regimes within the gyre, occurred in the ACC, but was absent at the Dronning Maud Land shelf region where seals fed benthically. Diel variation was almost absent in pelagic feeding areas covered by winter sea ice, where seals targeted deep layers around 500–700 meters. Thus, elephant seals appear to switch between feeding strategies when moving between oceanic regimes or in response to seasonal environmental conditions. While they are on the shelf, they exploit the locally-rich benthic ecosystem, while diel patterns in pelagic waters in summer are probably a response to strong vertical migration patterns within the copepod-based pelagic food web. Behavioral flexibility that permits such switching between different feeding strategies may have important consequences regarding the potential for southern elephant seals to adapt to variability or systematic changes in their environment resulting from ... Text Antarc* Antarctic Bouvetøya Dronning Maud Land Elephant Seals Sea ice Southern Elephant Seals Weddell Sea PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Bouvetøya ENVELOPE(3.358,3.358,-54.422,-54.422) Dronning Maud Land The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea PLoS ONE 5 11 e13816 |
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PubMed Central (PMC) |
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English |
topic |
Research Article |
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Research Article Biuw, Martin Nøst, Ole Anders Stien, Audun Zhou, Qin Lydersen, Christian Kovacs, Kit M. Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Weddell Sea hydrography and circulation is driven by influx of Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) at its eastern margin. Entrainment and upwelling of this high-nutrient, oxygen-depleted water mass within the Weddell Gyre also supports the mesopelagic ecosystem within the gyre and the rich benthic community along the Antarctic shelf. We used Conductivity-Temperature-Depth Satellite Relay Data Loggers (CTD-SRDLs) to examine the importance of hydrographic variability, ice cover and season on the movements and diving behavior of southern elephant seals in the eastern Weddell Sea region during their overwinter feeding trips from Bouvetøya. We developed a model describing diving depth as a function of local time of day to account for diel variation in diving behavior. Seals feeding in pelagic ice-free waters during the summer months displayed clear diel variation, with daytime dives reaching 500-1500 m and night-time targeting of the subsurface temperature and salinity maxima characteristic of CDW around 150–300 meters. This pattern was especially clear in the Weddell Cold and Warm Regimes within the gyre, occurred in the ACC, but was absent at the Dronning Maud Land shelf region where seals fed benthically. Diel variation was almost absent in pelagic feeding areas covered by winter sea ice, where seals targeted deep layers around 500–700 meters. Thus, elephant seals appear to switch between feeding strategies when moving between oceanic regimes or in response to seasonal environmental conditions. While they are on the shelf, they exploit the locally-rich benthic ecosystem, while diel patterns in pelagic waters in summer are probably a response to strong vertical migration patterns within the copepod-based pelagic food web. Behavioral flexibility that permits such switching between different feeding strategies may have important consequences regarding the potential for southern elephant seals to adapt to variability or systematic changes in their environment resulting from ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Biuw, Martin Nøst, Ole Anders Stien, Audun Zhou, Qin Lydersen, Christian Kovacs, Kit M. |
author_facet |
Biuw, Martin Nøst, Ole Anders Stien, Audun Zhou, Qin Lydersen, Christian Kovacs, Kit M. |
author_sort |
Biuw, Martin |
title |
Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
title_short |
Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
title_full |
Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
title_fullStr |
Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
title_full_unstemmed |
Effects of Hydrographic Variability on the Spatial, Seasonal and Diel Diving Patterns of Southern Elephant Seals in the Eastern Weddell Sea |
title_sort |
effects of hydrographic variability on the spatial, seasonal and diel diving patterns of southern elephant seals in the eastern weddell sea |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2010 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21072199 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(3.358,3.358,-54.422,-54.422) |
geographic |
Antarctic Bouvetøya Dronning Maud Land The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Bouvetøya Dronning Maud Land The Antarctic Weddell Weddell Sea |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Bouvetøya Dronning Maud Land Elephant Seals Sea ice Southern Elephant Seals Weddell Sea |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Bouvetøya Dronning Maud Land Elephant Seals Sea ice Southern Elephant Seals Weddell Sea |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2972216 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21072199 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 |
op_rights |
Biuw et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013816 |
container_title |
PLoS ONE |
container_volume |
5 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
e13816 |
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1766274119027916800 |