in all months, and mean precipitation increased in most months (Fig. 2a). 68Spatial variability in climatic change (Fig. 2b,c), necessitates local matching of phenological 69 and climatic datasets rather than the use of regionally-averaged climate data (e.g. Central 70England Temperatures) or large-scale climatic indicators (e.g. North Atlantic Oscillation). 71We did not make the restrictive assumption that biological events would be related to annual CSP precip varied less among trophic levels than the upper limit (Fig. 3d,f) consumers were less than those for primary consumers (Fig. 5a). This occurred because, 195averaged across species, the opposing climate responses of primary producers and secondary 196consumers are more similar in magnitude than are those for primary consumers (Fig. 3), 197 effectively "cancelling each other out". Our models suggest greater average advances for 198 crustacea, fish and insects than for other groups, such as freshwater phytoplankton, birds and 199 mammals (Fig. 5b). However, response-variation is high for crustacea (Fig. 5b). not estimated for marine plankton data (see above), and so the second-phase LME models 441 were run twice: once to examine correlations with temperature and precipitation for all but 442 the marine plankton phenological series (9,800 series), and once to examine only correlations 443 with temperature for the whole data set (10,003 series).

This research examines the energy budget of breeding female Antarctic fur seals, both when food was plentiful and when it is scarce. The energy expenditure and change in body mass of lactating female Antartic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazella, foraging at sea was measured in two years using doubly labeled water at South Georgia Island. There was no difference between years in mass gain, water influx, mass—specific field metabolic rate (FMR), or absolute FMR. Mean at—sea FMR over both years was 9.52 ± 0.55 W/kg (n = 22), a value that is 6.7 times the predicted basal rate but only 1.9 times the FMR measured onshored. Comparable results have been reported for similar—sized northern fur seals. Krill, the nearly exclusive prey of breeding females, were scarce in 1984 at South Georgia. Fur seal foraging trips were twice as long in 1984 as in 1985 and total mass—specific energy expended by females during these trips was significantly greater. In addition, females were significantly lighter at parturition in 1984, and both pup mortality and the proportion of pups that died from starvation were double the 1985 values. Female condition at parturition and average foraging—trip duration (i.e., offspring—provisioning rate) appear to reflect prey availability. The similarity between years in mass increase suggests that females may have a limited ability to increase the relative time spent foraging because even in normal years only 5% of their time at sea is spent resting. This contrasts with northern fur seals, Callorhinus ursinus, which typically spend 17% of their time at sea inactive. Apparently these northern seals can increase their foraging effort by increasing the proportion of time spent foraging. This would account for the observed between—year difference in at—sea FMR of C. ursinus while foraging—trip duration remained fairly constant.

No abstract

This study presents an analysis of changes in the regional abundance of harbour seals Phoca vitulina based on repeated aerial surveys of haulouts, and demonstrates the use of sparse data to deliver advice about population status and management. Generalized linear models with negative binomial errors were used to represent these overdispersed data. The shape parameter of the negative binomial distribution was directly estimated from the data where this was possible. Information from time-series of counts where there were few gaps in the data was used to improve the estimation of this parameter in areas where fewer surveys had been carried out. The results show that the number of harbour seals in eastern England has not increased since the end of the 2002 phocine distemper epidemic. There is also evidence of a general decline in most of the large harbour seal colonies around Britain. The populations in the Inner Hebrides were an exception, with numbers appearing to be stable or increasing. Between 2001 and 2006, the population in Orkney and Shetland declined by 40% (95% confidence interval: 30-50%), indicating harbour seals in these areas experienced substantially increased mortality or very low recruitment over this period. The widespread declines, ranging from Shetland to The Wash, suggest that the causes may have been present over a large part of the North Sea.

International audienceSpecies distribution maps can provide important information to focus conservation efforts and enable spatial management of human activities. Two sympatric marine predators, grey seals Halichoerus grypus and harbour seals Phoca vitulina, have overlapping ranges on land and at sea but contrasting population dynamics around Britain: whilst grey seals have generally increased, harbour seals have shown significant regional declines. We analysed 2 decades of at-sea movement data and terrestrial count data from these species to produce high resolution, broad-scale maps of distribution and associated uncertainty to inform conservation and management. Our results showed that grey seals use offshore areas connected to their haul-out sites by prominent corridors, and harbour seals primarily stay within 50 km of the coastline. Both species show fine-scale offshore spatial segregation off the east coast of Britain and broad-scale partitioning off western Scotland. These results illustrate that, for broad-scale marine spatial planning, the conservation needs of harbour seals (primarily inshore, the exception being selected offshore usage areas) are different from those of grey seals (up to 100 km offshore and corridors connecting these areas to haul-out sites). More generally, our results illustrate the importance of detailed knowledge of marine predator distributions to inform marine spatial planning; for instance, spatial prioritisation is not necessarily the most effective spatial planning strategy even when conserving species with similar taxonomy