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Temporal variation in the summer diet of the weddell seal, leptonychotes weddellii, at hope bay, antarctic peninsula

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Abstract

The study of the feeding habits of Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddellii, in the Antarctic Peninsula region is essential to understand their ecological role in the marine food webs, especially considering that this is one of the geographical areas most affected by climate change. The aims of this study were 1) to examine the diet of Weddell seals during the molting/resting stage of their annual cycle throughout five summer seasons 2) to assess the temporal variation in the diet composition 3) to determine the possible association of their feeding habits to climatic and oceanographic events such as El Niño Southern Oscillation ENSO and Southern annular mode (SAM). A total of 339 faecal samples were collected at Hope Bay between 2008/9 and 2013/14. Scat analysis indicated that, overall, fish constituted the dominant and most frequent prey taxon (F: 98.8%), followed by cephalopods (F: 33. 6%). Pleuragramma antarctica was the dominant and most frequent fish prey species representing, in average, 74.5% in numbers and 49.4% in mass of all the fish consumed. Cephalopods were mainly represented by the octopod Pareledone turqueti which represented, respectively, 53.7% and 56.8% in numbers and biomass of cephalopod prey consumed. Weddell seals preyed on demersal-benthic as well as pelagic resources. However, though octopods of the genus Pareledone were uniformly common as prey during the whole study period, P. antarctica became more dominant under negative SAM conditions and warm phase (El Niño) of ENSO.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Dr. E.R. Marschoff for statistical advice and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. Also, thank you to Mariana Negri (English-Spanish translator) for proofreading this paper. This work was funded by the Dirección Nacional del Antártico (Grant: PICTA 2010-01) and the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (Grants: Picto No. 11559-36054). Our procedures conform with the Code of Ethics of Animal Experimentation in Antarctica. The permission for this work was granted by the Dirección Nacional del Antártico (Environmental Office), Argentina.

Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from Dirección Nacional del Antártico and the Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica (Grants: Picto No. 11559‐36054).

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  1. Div. Mastozoología, Museo Arg. de Cs. Nat. “B. Rivadavia”, Av. A. Gallardo 470 (C1405DJR), Buenos Aires, Argentina

    A. Negri & G. A. Daneri

  2. Dep. de Predadores Tope, Instituto Antártico Argentino, Avenida 25 de Mayo N° 1143 (1650), General San Martín, Buenos Aires, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

    N. R. Coria, A. Corbalán & J. Negrete

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AN and GD: conceived and designed research. AN: conducted experiments and AN and GD: analyzed data and wrote the manuscript. NC and JN: supervised and revised the manuscript. AC: contributed to the processing of samples. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Negri, A., Daneri, G.A., Coria, N.R. et al. Temporal variation in the summer diet of the weddell seal, leptonychotes weddellii, at hope bay, antarctic peninsula. Polar Biol 46, 111–121 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-022-03104-6

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