Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics
BACKGROUND: To understand and predict the distribution of foragers, it is crucial to identify the factors that affect individual movement decisions at different scales. Individuals are expected to adjust their foraging movements to the hierarchical spatial distribution of resources. At a small local...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6739983 2023-05-15T14:02:43+02:00 Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics Wege, Mia de Bruyn, P. J. Nico Hindell, Mark A. Lea, Mary-Anne Bester, Marthán N. 2019-09-11 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739983/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31510989 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x en eng BioMed Central http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739983/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31510989 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided 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 Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. CC0 PDM CC-BY Research Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x 2019-09-22T00:25:37Z BACKGROUND: To understand and predict the distribution of foragers, it is crucial to identify the factors that affect individual movement decisions at different scales. Individuals are expected to adjust their foraging movements to the hierarchical spatial distribution of resources. At a small local scale, spatial segregation in foraging habitat happens among individuals of closely situated colonies. If foraging segregation is due to differences in distribution of resources, we would expect segregated foraging areas to have divergent habitat characteristics. RESULTS: We investigated how environmental characteristics of preferred foraging areas differ between two closely situated Subantarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis) colonies and a single Antarctic fur seal (A. gazella) colony that forage in different pelagic areas even though they are located well within each other’s foraging range. We further investigated the influence of the seasonal cycle on those environmental factors. This study used tracking data from 121 adult female Subantarctic and Antarctic fur seals, collected during summer and winter (2009–2015), from three different colonies. Boosted Regression Tree species distribution models were used to determine key environmental variables associated with areas of fur seal restricted search behaviour. There were no differences in the relative influence of key environmental variables between colonies and seasons. The variables with the most influence for each colony and season were latitude, longitude and magnitude of sea-currents. The influence of latitude and longitude is a by-product of the species’ distinct foraging areas, despite the close proximity (< 25 km) of the colonies. The predicted potential foraging areas for each colony changed from summer to winter, reflecting the seasonal cycle of the Southern Ocean. The model predicted that the potential foraging areas of females from the three colonies should overlap, and the fact they do not in reality indicates that factors other than ... Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Southern Ocean PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Southern Ocean BMC Ecology 19 1 |
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Research Article Wege, Mia de Bruyn, P. J. Nico Hindell, Mark A. Lea, Mary-Anne Bester, Marthán N. Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
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Research Article |
description |
BACKGROUND: To understand and predict the distribution of foragers, it is crucial to identify the factors that affect individual movement decisions at different scales. Individuals are expected to adjust their foraging movements to the hierarchical spatial distribution of resources. At a small local scale, spatial segregation in foraging habitat happens among individuals of closely situated colonies. If foraging segregation is due to differences in distribution of resources, we would expect segregated foraging areas to have divergent habitat characteristics. RESULTS: We investigated how environmental characteristics of preferred foraging areas differ between two closely situated Subantarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus tropicalis) colonies and a single Antarctic fur seal (A. gazella) colony that forage in different pelagic areas even though they are located well within each other’s foraging range. We further investigated the influence of the seasonal cycle on those environmental factors. This study used tracking data from 121 adult female Subantarctic and Antarctic fur seals, collected during summer and winter (2009–2015), from three different colonies. Boosted Regression Tree species distribution models were used to determine key environmental variables associated with areas of fur seal restricted search behaviour. There were no differences in the relative influence of key environmental variables between colonies and seasons. The variables with the most influence for each colony and season were latitude, longitude and magnitude of sea-currents. The influence of latitude and longitude is a by-product of the species’ distinct foraging areas, despite the close proximity (< 25 km) of the colonies. The predicted potential foraging areas for each colony changed from summer to winter, reflecting the seasonal cycle of the Southern Ocean. The model predicted that the potential foraging areas of females from the three colonies should overlap, and the fact they do not in reality indicates that factors other than ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Wege, Mia de Bruyn, P. J. Nico Hindell, Mark A. Lea, Mary-Anne Bester, Marthán N. |
author_facet |
Wege, Mia de Bruyn, P. J. Nico Hindell, Mark A. Lea, Mary-Anne Bester, Marthán N. |
author_sort |
Wege, Mia |
title |
Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
title_short |
Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
title_full |
Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
title_fullStr |
Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
title_full_unstemmed |
Preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two Southern Ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
title_sort |
preferred, small-scale foraging areas of two southern ocean fur seal species are not determined by habitat characteristics |
publisher |
BioMed Central |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739983/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31510989 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x |
geographic |
Antarctic Southern Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Southern Ocean |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Fur Seal Antarctic Fur Seals Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6739983/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31510989 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided 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 Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC0 PDM CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0252-x |
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BMC Ecology |
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19 |
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1 |
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1766273141865185280 |