TY - JOUR
T1 - Insights from the first global population estimate of Weddell seals in Antarctica
AU - LaRue, Michelle
AU - Salas, Leo
AU - Nur, Nadav
AU - Ainley, David
AU - Stammerjohn, Sharon
AU - Pennycook, Jean
AU - Dozier, Melissa
AU - Saints, Jon
AU - Stamatiou, Kostas
AU - Barrington, Luke
AU - Rotella, Jay
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - The Weddell seal is one of the best-studied marine mammals in the world, owing to a multidecadal demographic effort in the southernmost part of its range. Despite their occurrence around the Antarctic coastline, we know little about larger scale patterns in distribution, population size, or structure. We combined high-resolution satellite imagery from 2011, crowd-sourcing, and habitat modeling to report the first global population estimate for the species and environmental factors that influence its distribution. We estimated ~202,000 (95% confidence interval: 85,345 to 523,140) sub-adult and adult female seals, with proximate ocean depth and fast-ice variables as factors explaining spatial prevalence. Distances to penguin colonies were associated with seal presence, but only emperor penguin population size had a strong negative relationship. The small, estimated population size relative to previous estimates and the seals' nexus with trophic competitors indicates that a community ecology approach is required in efforts to monitor the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
AB - The Weddell seal is one of the best-studied marine mammals in the world, owing to a multidecadal demographic effort in the southernmost part of its range. Despite their occurrence around the Antarctic coastline, we know little about larger scale patterns in distribution, population size, or structure. We combined high-resolution satellite imagery from 2011, crowd-sourcing, and habitat modeling to report the first global population estimate for the species and environmental factors that influence its distribution. We estimated ~202,000 (95% confidence interval: 85,345 to 523,140) sub-adult and adult female seals, with proximate ocean depth and fast-ice variables as factors explaining spatial prevalence. Distances to penguin colonies were associated with seal presence, but only emperor penguin population size had a strong negative relationship. The small, estimated population size relative to previous estimates and the seals' nexus with trophic competitors indicates that a community ecology approach is required in efforts to monitor the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85114244341
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85114244341&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abh3674
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abh3674
M3 - Article
C2 - 34559555
AN - SCOPUS:85114244341
SN - 2375-2548
VL - 7
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
IS - 39
M1 - eabh3674
ER -