Food Consumption and Foraging Success of Free-ranging Southern Elephant Seals
Elephant seals use a suite of physiological and behavioural mechanisms to maximise the time they can be submerged. Of these hypo-metabolism is one of the most important, so this study quantified maximum O2 consumptions relative to dove depth and swim speed.
From the abstract of the referenced paper:
The ability of air-breathing marine predators to forage successfully depends on their ability to remain submerged. This is in turn related to their total O2 stores and the rate at which these stores are used up while submerged. Body size was positively related to dive duration in a sample of 34 adult female southern elephant seals from Macquarie Island. However, there was no relationship between body size and dive depth. This indicates that smaller seals, with smaller total O2 stores, make shorter dives than larger individuals but operate at similar depths, resulting in less time being spent at depth. Nine adult female elephant seals were also equipped with velocity time depth recorders. In eight of these seals, a plot of swimming speed against dive duration revealed a cloud of points with a clear upper boundary. This boundary could be described using regression analysis and gave a significant negative relationship in most cases. These results indicate that metabolic rate varies with activity levels, as indicated by swimming speed, and that there are quantifiable limits to the distance that a seal can travel on a dive of a given swimming speed. However, the seals rarely dive to these physiological limits, and the majority of their dives are well within their aerobic capacity. Elephant seals therefore appear to dive in a way that ensures that they have a reserve of O2 available.
Data were collected on Time Depth Recorders (TDRs), and stored in hexadecimal format. Hexadecimal files can be read using 'Instrument Helper', a free download from Wildlife Computers (see the url given below).
Data for this project is the same data that was collected for ASAC projects 857 and 589 (ASAC_857 and ASAC_589).
Simple
Identification info
- Alternate title
- Food Consumption and Foraging Success of Free-ranging Southern Elephant Seals
- Date (Publication)
- 2004-10-20
- Edition
- 1
- Citation identifier
-
Dataset DOI
- Title
- Information and documentation - Digital object identifier system
- Date (Publication)
- 2012-04-23
- Citation identifier
- ISO 26324:2012
- Citation identifier
- doi:10.4225/15/58462f43ec136
Originator
Publisher
Principal investigator
Collaborator
- Name
- CAASM Metadata
- Status
- Completed
Custodian
- Topic category
-
- Biota
- Oceans
Extent
Extent
- Description
- Temporal Coverage
Temporal extent
- TimePeriod
- 1994-09-01 1996-03-31
- Title
- Metabolic limitations on dive duration and swimming speed in the southern elephant seal, Mirounga leonina.
- Date (Publication)
- 2001
- Citation identifier
- 73
Author
- Name
- Physiological and Biochemical Zoology
- Page
- 790-798
- NASA/GCMD Earth Science Keywords
-
- EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES
- EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES > MAMMALS > CARNIVORES > SEALS/SEA LIONS/WALRUSES
- EARTH SCIENCE > BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION > ANIMALS/VERTEBRATES > MAMMALS
- EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS > ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS > CONSUMPTION RATES
- Keywords
-
- ENERGETICS
- FORAGING
- MACQUARIE ISLAND
- SEALS
- SOUTHERN ELEPHANT SEAL
- SOUTHERN OCEAN
- TELEMETRY
- NASA/GCMD Earth Science Keywords
-
- AMD/AU
- CEOS
- AMD
- NASA/GCMD Earth Science Keywords
-
- OCEAN > SOUTHERN OCEAN
- OCEAN > SOUTHERN OCEAN > MACQUARIE ISLAND
- GEOGRAPHIC REGION > POLAR
Resource constraints
- Use limitation
- This metadata record is publicly available.
Resource constraints
- Access constraints
- licence
- Other constraints
- The data are publicly available for download from theprovided URL.
Resource constraints
- File type
- Portable Network Graphic
- Title
- Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- Website
-
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
Legal code for Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 International license
- Use constraints
- licence
- Other constraints
- This data set conforms to the CCBY Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/metadata/citation.cfm?entry_id=ASAC_769 when using these data. Also, please contact the investigator when using these data.
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
Distributor
Distributor
Distributor
- Fees
- free
- Planned available datetime
- 2004-10-20T00:00:00
- Units of distribution
- kb
- Transfer size
- 9266
- Distribution format
-
- hexadecimal
- OnLine resource
-
DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE
Download Point for Instrument Helper
- OnLine resource
-
GET DATA
Download point for the data
- OnLine resource
-
PROJECT HOME PAGE
Public information for ASAC project 769
- OnLine resource
-
VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
Citation reference for this metadata record and dataset
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
- Maintenance note
- 2010-12-21 - record updated by Dave Connell to update the use constraints. 2016-12-06 - record updated by Dave Connell - basic updates.
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
- string/ASAC_769
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Author
Sponsor
Owner
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Dataset
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
- gov.nasa.gsfc.gcmd
- Citation identifier
- e234ed35-ff1f-4af7-8d0f-916bce0465c1
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
- gov.nasa.gsfc.gcmd
- Date (Last Revision)
- 2015-04-08T11:19:18
Identifier
- Description
- metadata.extraction_date
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
- gov.nasa.gsfc.gcmd
- Citation identifier
- 8.6
- Metadata linkage
-
http://data.aad.gov.au/metadata/records/ASAC_769
Point of truth for the metadata record
- Date info (Creation)
- 2000-08-07T00:00:00
- Date info (Last Update)
- 2017-04-26
Metadata standard
- Title
- ISO 19115-3
- Edition
- 2014
- Other citation details
- Version 1
- Title
- DIF to ISO 19115-1 Profile