Foraging behaviour of southern elephant seals over the Kerguelen Plateau

• Published in: Marine Ecology Progress Series
• Main Authors: O'Toole, M, Hindell, MA, Charrassin, J-B, Guinet, C
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Inter-Research 2014
• Subjects: Biological Sciences; Ecology; Marine and Estuarine Ecology (incl. Marine Ichthyology); Austral; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands; Elephant Seals; Southern Elephant Seals
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10709; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/92727

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.