Impacts of climatic anomalies on provisioning strategies of a Southern Ocean predator

Lea, Mary‐Anne; Guinet, Christophe; Cherel, Yves; Duhamel, Guy; Dubroca, Laurent; Pruvost, Patrice; Hindell, Mark A.

doi:10.3354/meps310077

Cited by 82 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 71 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Evidence suggests that in Antarctic fur seals male pups grow faster when foraging conditions are favourable (Lea et al 2006, Vargas et al 2009). This would suggest that, despite the lower produc tivity, krill abundance is unlikely to be the sole factor limiting population size at Cooper Bay, at least in the year of our study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging behaviour in two Antarctic fur seal colonies with differing population recoveries

Staniland

Morton²,

Robinson³

et al. 2011

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We compared Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus gazella breeding at 2 contrasting sites on South Georgia: one high density colony at Bird Island and one lower density colony at Cooper Bay. The population at Cooper Bay was considerably smaller than that at Bird Island despite ample suitable breeding area being available. At Cooper Bay, female seals were longer but weighed less than those breeding at Bird Island and, whilst both maintained the same rate of female pup growth, male pups grew faster at Cooper Bay. Although Bird Island seals dived deeper, they dived less often than Cooper Bay seals so that both populations spent comparable amounts of time in the bottom phase of dives actively foraging. Longer distance oceanic foraging trips that were observed at Bird Island were almost entirely absent from Cooper Bay. Both populations fed on Antarctic krill, but there was an absence of myctophid prey in the diet of seals at Cooper Bay. Evidence suggests that the favoured myctophid prey of fur seals at South Georgia, Protomyctophum choriodon, are absent from the colder waters around the south-east of the island. We propose that, if these energy-rich prey are unavailable in this region then seals at Cooper Bay may find it hard to offset the increased costs of foraging trips with longer duration and distance. This potentially reduced niche width means that the Cooper Bay population may be less buffered against environmental variability. Although food resources appeared to be sufficient during the period of our study, the south-eastern region of South Georgia has increased variability in food resources that, coupled with a smaller area in which to forage, might explain the reduced population size compared to the north-eastern end of the island.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging behaviour in two Antarctic fur seal colonies with differing population recoveries

Staniland

Morton²,

Robinson³

et al. 2011

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…0.001 provided to her pup while fasting might have been limited by female size and energy stores (Beauplet and Guinet 2007). At a breeding colony in the Kerguelen Archipelago, longer Antarctic fur seal females weaned larger pups, but only in years of low food availability (Lea et al 2006). Trip duration and pup growth rate indicate that food availability was good for both years of this study .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Another potential weakness of this study is that because of logistical constraints, we used mean milk water and energy content values that were averaged from all milk samples collected during the respective study periods. Individual females may differ in the composition of their milk because of their physiological capacity to produce milk and/or because of dietary differences, and this might affect some of the results in the study (Lea et al 2006;McDonald and Crocker 2006;Lang et al 2009). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dynamic Influence of Maternal and Pup Traits on Maternal Care during Lactation in an Income Breeder, the Antarctic Fur Seal

McDonald¹,

Goebel²,

Crocker³

et al. 2012

Physiological and Biochemical Zoology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Life-history theory predicts that selection will favor optimal levels of parental effort that balance benefits of current reproduction with costs to survival and future reproduction. The optimal level of effort depends on parental traits, offspring traits, and provisioning strategy. Additionally, how these factors influence effort may differ depending on the stage of reproduction. The relative importance of maternal and offspring traits on energy allocation to offspring was investigated in known-age Antarctic fur seals Arctocephalus gazella across four stages of reproduction, using birth mass and milk-consumption measurements. Maternal traits were important during three of the four stages investigated, with larger females giving birth to larger pups and investing more in pups during perinatal and molt stages. Pup mass influenced maternal effort during the premolt stage, and provisioning strategy influenced postnatal maternal effort at all stages. Energy provided to the offspring during an attendance visit was positively related to the duration of the foraging-trip/visit cycle; however, when investment was controlled for trip/visit cycle duration, the overall rate of energy transfer was similar across trip durations. In addition to strong effects of maternal mass, pup traits affected energy allocation, suggesting that pup demand is important in determining maternal care. These findings emphasize the importance of considering state variables in life-history studies and suggest that timing of measurements of effort in species with long provisioning periods may influence conclusions and our ability to make comparisons of reproductive effort among species.

show abstract

“…In marine environments, productivity varies both in spatial and temporal scales, influencing marine predator distribution, diet, foraging, diving behavior, and body condition (Lea et al 2006, Womble et al 2009). In particular, body condition is one of the main parameters affected by local productivity because it is a relative measure of the nutritional state or the level of energy reserves of an organism, commonly interpreted as a measure of general well-being of an individual or population (Labocha et al 2014).activity at sea with the raising and provisioning of their young ashore (Lea et al 2006, Womble et al 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal variation in local productivity influences body condition of South American sea lion pups

Sepúlveda¹,

Olea²,

Carrasco³

et al. 2014

Aquat. Biol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Local productivity is essentially important for colonial species, such as seabirds and otariids (fur seals and sea lions). These species are central place foragers and income breeders that combine foraging ABSTRACT: In otariids, the condition and growth of offspring are linked to prey availability be cause females show a strong dependence on local food availability. Thus, it is expected that body condition of sea lion pups will vary spatially and/or temporally as a response to variations in the abundance of prey species on which females feed. The objective of this study was to analyze the geographic and temporal variation in the body condition of South American sea lion Otaria flavescens pups in Chile, and to relate it to spatio-temporal variations in prey availability. We captured 340 live pups in 2 distant colonies, Punta Patache/Punta Negra and Cobquecura, along the Chilean coast during consecutive breeding seasons. A morphometric index of pup body condition was estimated by comparing pups in all years using least-squares linear regression of the log 10 -transformed measurements of standard length vs. body mass. We analyzed the relationship between this index and estimates of fish biomass (as a proxy of prey availability) at each locality. We found that body condition was significantly different between years and between colonies, suggesting that animals of the central-south area were in better condition than those in the north. A positive relationship between body condition and fish biomass was found, suggesting that differences in body condition may be explained by spatial and temporal differences in prey availability.

show abstract

Impacts of climatic anomalies on provisioning strategies of a Southern Ocean predator

Cited by 82 publications

References 71 publications

Foraging behaviour in two Antarctic fur seal colonies with differing population recoveries

Foraging behaviour in two Antarctic fur seal colonies with differing population recoveries

Dynamic Influence of Maternal and Pup Traits on Maternal Care during Lactation in an Income Breeder, the Antarctic Fur Seal

Latitudinal variation in local productivity influences body condition of South American sea lion pups

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About