Foraging behaviour of southern elephant seals over the Kerguelen Plateau
A total of 79 (37 juvenile male, 42 adult female) southern elephant seals Miroungaleonina from the Kerguelen Islands were tracked between 2004 and 2009. Area-restricted searchpatterns and dive behaviour were established from location data gathered by CTD satellite-relayeddata loggers. At-sea movemen...
| Published in: | Marine Ecology Progress Series |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Inter-Research
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10709 http://ecite.utas.edu.au/92727 |
| Summary: | A total of 79 (37 juvenile male, 42 adult female) southern elephant seals Miroungaleonina from the Kerguelen Islands were tracked between 2004 and 2009. Area-restricted searchpatterns and dive behaviour were established from location data gathered by CTD satellite-relayeddata loggers. At-sea movements of the seals demonstrated that >40% of the juvenile elephantseal population tagged use the Kerguelen Plateau during the austral winter. Search activityincreased where temperature at 200 m depth was lower, when closer to the shelf break, and, to alesser extent, where sea-surface height anomalies were higher. However, while this modelexplained the observed data ( F 1,242 = 88.23, p < 0.0001), bootstrap analysis revealed poor predictivecapacity (r 2 = 0.264). There appears to be potential overlap between the seals and commercialfishing operations in the region. This study may therefore support ecosystem-based fisheries managementof the region, with the aim of maintaining ecological integrity of the shelf. |
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