Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya
Southern elephant seals are abundant top trophic predators with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. They spend up to 80% of their life at sea on long-ranging migrations to remote foraging grounds. During breeding and moulting they haulout on subantarctic islands. During these migration...
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UiT Norges arktiske universitet
2022
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27294 |
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ftunivtroemsoe:oai:munin.uit.no:10037/27294 2023-05-15T15:45:57+02:00 Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya Hannén, Rebecca 2022-10-18 https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27294 eng eng UiT Norges arktiske universitet UiT The Arctic University of Norway https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27294 openAccess Copyright 2022 The Author(s) BIO-3950 Master thesis Mastergradsoppgave 2022 ftunivtroemsoe 2022-11-10T00:01:31Z Southern elephant seals are abundant top trophic predators with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. They spend up to 80% of their life at sea on long-ranging migrations to remote foraging grounds. During breeding and moulting they haulout on subantarctic islands. During these migrations they dive continuously to great depth, encountering various environmental conditions. They are further known to target frontal areas and mesoscale eddies. Due to ecosystems changing, with high latitude areas being especially sensitive, it is of major importance to understand behavioural drivers in order to predict how they will react. They display site fidelity (breeding), allowing for retrieval of telemetry tags collecting high resolution data. In this study, data from five adult female southern elephant seals tracked from Bouvetøya in 2015 were analysed. This data covered their post-moult foraging migration. By identifying changes in move persistence values along the tracks, behavioural transitions periods were extracted to study the post-moult foraging behaviour of female southern elephant seals. More specifically, the dive and feeding efficiency during transition zones, defined as significant changes horizontal movement persistence, was analysed as a function of depth and physical features such as the mixed layer depth, top of circumpolar deep water as well as subsurface maximum. Master Thesis Bouvetøya Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive Southern Ocean Bouvetøya ENVELOPE(3.358,3.358,-54.422,-54.422) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Tromsø: Munin Open Research Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftunivtroemsoe |
language |
English |
topic |
BIO-3950 |
spellingShingle |
BIO-3950 Hannén, Rebecca Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
topic_facet |
BIO-3950 |
description |
Southern elephant seals are abundant top trophic predators with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. They spend up to 80% of their life at sea on long-ranging migrations to remote foraging grounds. During breeding and moulting they haulout on subantarctic islands. During these migrations they dive continuously to great depth, encountering various environmental conditions. They are further known to target frontal areas and mesoscale eddies. Due to ecosystems changing, with high latitude areas being especially sensitive, it is of major importance to understand behavioural drivers in order to predict how they will react. They display site fidelity (breeding), allowing for retrieval of telemetry tags collecting high resolution data. In this study, data from five adult female southern elephant seals tracked from Bouvetøya in 2015 were analysed. This data covered their post-moult foraging migration. By identifying changes in move persistence values along the tracks, behavioural transitions periods were extracted to study the post-moult foraging behaviour of female southern elephant seals. More specifically, the dive and feeding efficiency during transition zones, defined as significant changes horizontal movement persistence, was analysed as a function of depth and physical features such as the mixed layer depth, top of circumpolar deep water as well as subsurface maximum. |
format |
Master Thesis |
author |
Hannén, Rebecca |
author_facet |
Hannén, Rebecca |
author_sort |
Hannén, Rebecca |
title |
Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
title_short |
Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
title_full |
Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
title_fullStr |
Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
title_full_unstemmed |
Drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) tracked from Bouvetøya |
title_sort |
drivers of behavioural transition in foraging adult female southern elephant seals (mirounga leonina) tracked from bouvetøya |
publisher |
UiT Norges arktiske universitet |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27294 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(3.358,3.358,-54.422,-54.422) |
geographic |
Southern Ocean Bouvetøya |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean Bouvetøya |
genre |
Bouvetøya Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Bouvetøya Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
https://hdl.handle.net/10037/27294 |
op_rights |
openAccess Copyright 2022 The Author(s) |
_version_ |
1766380612361388032 |