Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington
The goal of this study was to model haul-out behavior of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Hood Canal region of Washington State with respect to changes in physiological, environmental, and temporal covariates. Previous research has provided a solid understanding of seal haul-out behavior. Here,...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:plo:pone00:0038180 2024-04-14T08:14:22+00:00 Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington Josh M London Jay M Ver Hoef Steven J Jeffries Monique M Lance Peter L Boveng https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180&type=printable unknown https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180&type=printable article ftrepec 2024-03-19T10:35:05Z The goal of this study was to model haul-out behavior of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Hood Canal region of Washington State with respect to changes in physiological, environmental, and temporal covariates. Previous research has provided a solid understanding of seal haul-out behavior. Here, we expand on that work using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with temporal autocorrelation and a large dataset. Our dataset included behavioral haul-out records from archival and VHF radio tag deployments on 25 individual seals representing 61,430 seal hours. A novel application for increased computational efficiency allowed us to examine this large dataset with a GLMM that appropriately accounts for temporal autocorellation. We found significant relationships with the covariates hour of day, day of year, minutes from high tide and year. Additionally, there was a significant effect of the interaction term hour of day : day of year. This interaction term demonstrated that seals are more likely to haul out during nighttime hours in August and September, but then switch to predominantly daylight haul-out patterns in October and November. We attribute this change in behavior to an effect of human disturbance levels. This study also examined a unique ecological event to determine the role of increased killer whale (Orcinus orca) predation on haul-out behavior. In 2003 and 2005 these harbor seals were exposed to unprecedented levels of killer whale predation and results show an overall increase in haul-out probability after exposure to killer whales. The outcome of this study will be integral to understanding any changes in population abundance as a result of increased killer whale predation. Article in Journal/Newspaper Killer Whale Orca Orcinus orca Phoca vitulina Killer whale RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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The goal of this study was to model haul-out behavior of harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Hood Canal region of Washington State with respect to changes in physiological, environmental, and temporal covariates. Previous research has provided a solid understanding of seal haul-out behavior. Here, we expand on that work using a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with temporal autocorrelation and a large dataset. Our dataset included behavioral haul-out records from archival and VHF radio tag deployments on 25 individual seals representing 61,430 seal hours. A novel application for increased computational efficiency allowed us to examine this large dataset with a GLMM that appropriately accounts for temporal autocorellation. We found significant relationships with the covariates hour of day, day of year, minutes from high tide and year. Additionally, there was a significant effect of the interaction term hour of day : day of year. This interaction term demonstrated that seals are more likely to haul out during nighttime hours in August and September, but then switch to predominantly daylight haul-out patterns in October and November. We attribute this change in behavior to an effect of human disturbance levels. This study also examined a unique ecological event to determine the role of increased killer whale (Orcinus orca) predation on haul-out behavior. In 2003 and 2005 these harbor seals were exposed to unprecedented levels of killer whale predation and results show an overall increase in haul-out probability after exposure to killer whales. The outcome of this study will be integral to understanding any changes in population abundance as a result of increased killer whale predation. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Josh M London Jay M Ver Hoef Steven J Jeffries Monique M Lance Peter L Boveng |
spellingShingle |
Josh M London Jay M Ver Hoef Steven J Jeffries Monique M Lance Peter L Boveng Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
author_facet |
Josh M London Jay M Ver Hoef Steven J Jeffries Monique M Lance Peter L Boveng |
author_sort |
Josh M London |
title |
Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
title_short |
Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
title_full |
Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
title_fullStr |
Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
title_full_unstemmed |
Haul-Out Behavior of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) in Hood Canal, Washington |
title_sort |
haul-out behavior of harbor seals (phoca vitulina) in hood canal, washington |
url |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180&type=printable |
genre |
Killer Whale Orca Orcinus orca Phoca vitulina Killer whale |
genre_facet |
Killer Whale Orca Orcinus orca Phoca vitulina Killer whale |
op_relation |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0038180&type=printable |
_version_ |
1796312549638012928 |