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

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS) - Volzke, Sophia
IMAS - Hobart
Private Bag 129
Hobart
Tasmania
7001
Australia
ORCID ID >

Owner

Acoustic Telemetry Sub-Facility, Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) - McMahon, Clive
ORCID ID >

coInvestigator

Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), Department of the Environment and Energy, Australian Government - Wotherspoon, Simon
203 Channel Highway
Kingston
Tasmania
7050
Australia
ORCID ID >

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

IMAS - UTAS - Volzke, Sophia
Private Bag 110
Hobart
TAS
7001
Australia
Topic category
  • Biota

Extent

N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
1951-01-01
Maintenance and update frequency
Not planned
Keywords (Theme)
  • mark-recapture studies
  • demographic modelling
  • predator demography
  • resight effort
  • Macquarie Island
  • breeding population
Keywords (Taxon)
  • Mirounga leonina
  • southern elephant seal
  • capital breeder
  • predator ecology
Global Change Master Directory Earth Science Keywords, Version 8.5
AODN Geographic Extents Vocabulary

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

OnLine resource
README - data file structure and R-markdown instructions

OnLine resource
DATA ACCESS - download full data package (including code) [.zip 6MB]

OnLine resource
Extreme polygyny results in intersex differences in age-dependent survival of a highly dimorphic marine mammal [related publication]

OnLine resource
Climate influences on female survival in a declining population of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) [related publication]

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

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS) - IMAS Data Manager

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
 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Macquarie Island breeding population demographic modelling mark-recapture studies predator demography resight effort
Global Change Master Directory Earth Science Keywords, Version 8.5
EARTH SCIENCE | AGRICULTURE | ANIMAL SCIENCE | ANIMAL ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS EARTH SCIENCE | CLIMATE INDICATORS

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Associated resources

Not available