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Southern elephant seal movements and Antarctic sea ice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2004

H. Bornemann
Affiliation:
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Postfach 1201 61, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany
M. Kreyscher
Affiliation:
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Postfach 1201 61, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany
S. Ramdohr
Affiliation:
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Postfach 1201 61, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany
T. Martin
Affiliation:
Institut für Meereskunde, Düsternbrooker Weg 20, D-24105 Kiel, Germany
A. Carlini
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Instituto Antártico Argentino, Cerrito 1248, 1010 Buenos Aires, Argentina
L. Sellmann
Affiliation:
Dienstleistung für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Am Bremerhavener Innovations- und Gründerzentrum, Stresemannstrasse 46, D-27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
J. Plötz
Affiliation:
Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Postfach 1201 61, D-27515 Bremerhaven, Germany

Abstract

Weaned pups and post-moult female elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) were fitted with satellite transmitters at King George Island (South Shetland Islands) between December 1996 and February 1997. Of the nine adult females tracked for more than two months, three stayed in a localized area between the South Shetland Islands and the South Orkney Islands. The other six females travelled south-west along the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula up to the Bellingshausen Sea. Two of them then moved north-east and hauled out on South Georgia in October. One female was last located north of the South Shetland Islands in March 1998. In total, eight females were again sighted on King George Island and six of the transmitters removed. The tracks of the weaners contrasted with those of the adults. In January, five juveniles left King George Island for the Pacific sector spending about four weeks in the open sea west of the De Gerlache Seamounts. Three of them returned to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula in June, of which one was last located on the Patagonian Shelf in November 1997. The juveniles avoided sea ice while the adults did not. The latter displayed behavioural differences in using the pack ice habitat during winter. Some females adjusted their movement patterns to the pulsating sea ice fringe in distant foraging areas while others ranged in closed pack ice of up to 100%. The feeding grounds of adult female elephant seals are more closely associated with the pack ice zone than previously assumed. The significance of the midwater fish Pleuragramma antarcticum as a potential food resource is discussed.

Type
Papers—Life Sciences and Oceanography
Copyright
© Antarctic Science Ltd 2000

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