Southern elephant seal demography
The Southern Ocean has been disproportionately affected by climate change and is therefore an ideal place to study the influence of changing environmental conditions on ecosystems. Changes in the demography of predator populations are indicators of broader shifts in food-web structure, but long-term data are required to study these effects. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from Macquarie Island have consistently decreased in population size while all other major populations across the Southern Ocean have recently stabilised or are increasing. Two long-term mark-recapture studies (1956-1967 and 1993-2009) have monitored this population, which provides an opportunity to investigate demographic performance over a range of climatic conditions. This provides insights on individual vital rates of known-age seals from Macquarie Island over extensively long timeseries.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 2020-03-17
- Date (Revision)
- 2023-10-30
- Citation identifier
-
doi:10.25959/W2SC-E717
- Title
- Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system
- Date (Publication)
- 2023-10-30
- Citation identifier
-
ISO 26324:2012
- Citation identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.25959/W2SC-E717
Principal investigator
Owner
coInvestigator
- Credit
- The Australian Antarctic Division through the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) supported this research. The study was carried out at Macquarie Island under ethics approval to Harry Burton from the Australian Antarctic Animal Ethics Committee (AAS 2265 & AAS 2794) and the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service.
- Status
- On going
Point of contact
- Topic category
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- Biota
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 1951-01-01
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
- Keywords (Theme)
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- mark-recapture studies
- demographic modelling
- predator demography
- resight effort
- Macquarie Island
- breeding population
- Keywords (Taxon)
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- Mirounga leonina
- southern elephant seal
- capital breeder
- predator ecology
- Global Change Master Directory Earth Science Keywords, Version 8.5
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- The data described in this record are the intellectual property of the University of Tasmania through the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies.
Resource constraints
- Linkage
-
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png
License Graphic
- Title
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
- Website
-
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License Text
- Other constraints
- Cite data as: Volzke, S., McMahon, C., & Wotherspoon, S. (2023). Southern elephant seal demography [Data set]. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS). https://doi.org/10.25959/W2SC-E717
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Content Information
- Content type
- Physical measurement
Distribution Information
- Distribution format
-
-
CSV
-
CSV
- OnLine resource
-
README - data file structure and R-markdown instructions
Resource lineage
- Statement
- Between 1951–1965 and 1993–1999 weaned Southern Elephant Seals were captured and marked permanently by hot iron branding. Seals were recorded in regular re-sights varying from daily isthmus searches during the breeding season to ad-hoc sightings outside of active monitoring. Biological data from individual short-term scientific projects include information on the physical condition for a sub-set of pups and adult seals. This record includes the code and materials for analytical tools used to study climate influences on individual survival.
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/94f859d3-922b-4fdd-b6e9-3a6186477bdc
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Publisher
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
- Metadata linkage
-
https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/94f859d3-922b-4fdd-b6e9-3a6186477bdc
Point of truth URL of this metadata record
- Date info (Creation)
- 2020-11-18T13:26:12
- Date info (Revision)
- 2023-10-30T19:21:07
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-3:2018