Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway
Bearded seals are one of the least studied Arctic marine mammals, despite their circumpolar distribution and importance as a resource to Inuit communities. In this study, adult bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus) were equipped with GPS-Argos-CTD-SRDLs in Svalbard, Norway (2011–2012, n = 7) to docume...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6242851 2023-05-15T14:31:41+02:00 Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway Hamilton, Charmain D. Kovacs, Kit M. Lydersen, Christian 2018-11-19 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6242851/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30451906 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6242851/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30451906 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2018 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 2018-12-02T01:51:47Z Bearded seals are one of the least studied Arctic marine mammals, despite their circumpolar distribution and importance as a resource to Inuit communities. In this study, adult bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus) were equipped with GPS-Argos-CTD-SRDLs in Svalbard, Norway (2011–2012, n = 7) to document their diving, activity and movement patterns in a region where their habitat is changing rapidly. Five seals transmitted for > 8 months, sending 21,738 GPS-positions and 17,866 dives between July and April. The seals spent little time hauled out (≤ 5%). Diving, which occupied 74 ± 3% of their time, was generally shallow (24 ± 7 m, max: 391 m) and of short duration (6.6 ± 1.5 min, max: 24 min) with deeper, longer dives in winter/spring compared to summer. All seals occupied shallow, coastal areas and relatively small 50% home ranges (10–32 km2). However, individuals exhibited high degrees of specialization in their habitat use and diving behaviour, differing markedly with respect to proportions of benthic vs pelagic dives (range: 51–95% benthic dives), distance to glacier fronts (range: 3–22 km) and in the time spent at the bottom of dives (range: 43–77%). Having specialized strategies within a generalist population may help bearded seals adapt in a rapidly changing Arctic ecosystem. Text Arctic marine mammals Arctic Erignathus barbatus glacier glacier inuit Svalbard PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Norway Svalbard Scientific Reports 8 1 |
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Article Hamilton, Charmain D. Kovacs, Kit M. Lydersen, Christian Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
Bearded seals are one of the least studied Arctic marine mammals, despite their circumpolar distribution and importance as a resource to Inuit communities. In this study, adult bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus) were equipped with GPS-Argos-CTD-SRDLs in Svalbard, Norway (2011–2012, n = 7) to document their diving, activity and movement patterns in a region where their habitat is changing rapidly. Five seals transmitted for > 8 months, sending 21,738 GPS-positions and 17,866 dives between July and April. The seals spent little time hauled out (≤ 5%). Diving, which occupied 74 ± 3% of their time, was generally shallow (24 ± 7 m, max: 391 m) and of short duration (6.6 ± 1.5 min, max: 24 min) with deeper, longer dives in winter/spring compared to summer. All seals occupied shallow, coastal areas and relatively small 50% home ranges (10–32 km2). However, individuals exhibited high degrees of specialization in their habitat use and diving behaviour, differing markedly with respect to proportions of benthic vs pelagic dives (range: 51–95% benthic dives), distance to glacier fronts (range: 3–22 km) and in the time spent at the bottom of dives (range: 43–77%). Having specialized strategies within a generalist population may help bearded seals adapt in a rapidly changing Arctic ecosystem. |
format |
Text |
author |
Hamilton, Charmain D. Kovacs, Kit M. Lydersen, Christian |
author_facet |
Hamilton, Charmain D. Kovacs, Kit M. Lydersen, Christian |
author_sort |
Hamilton, Charmain D. |
title |
Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
title_short |
Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
title_full |
Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
title_fullStr |
Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
title_full_unstemmed |
Individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in Svalbard, Norway |
title_sort |
individual variability in diving, movement and activity patterns of adult bearded seals in svalbard, norway |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6242851/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30451906 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 |
geographic |
Arctic Norway Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Norway Svalbard |
genre |
Arctic marine mammals Arctic Erignathus barbatus glacier glacier inuit Svalbard |
genre_facet |
Arctic marine mammals Arctic Erignathus barbatus glacier glacier inuit Svalbard |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6242851/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30451906 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-35306-6 |
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Scientific Reports |
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