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Marine Biology Commons

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Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology

Stable isotopes

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Full-Text Articles in Marine Biology

Favorable Spring Conditions Can Buffer The Impact Of Winter Carryover Effects On A Key Breeding Decision In An Arctic-Breeding Seabird, Rolanda J. Steenweg, Glenn T. Crossin, Holly L. Hennin, H. Grant Gilchrist, Oliver P. Love Feb 2022

Favorable Spring Conditions Can Buffer The Impact Of Winter Carryover Effects On A Key Breeding Decision In An Arctic-Breeding Seabird, Rolanda J. Steenweg, Glenn T. Crossin, Holly L. Hennin, H. Grant Gilchrist, Oliver P. Love

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

The availability and investment of energy among successive life-history stages is a key feature of carryover effects. In migratory organisms, examining how both winter and spring experiences carryover to affect breeding activity is difficult due to the challenges in tracking individuals through these periods without impacting their behavior, thereby biasing results. Using common eiders Somateria mollissima, we examined whether spring conditions at an Arctic breeding colony (East Bay Island, Nunavut, Canada) can buffer the impacts of winter temperatures on body mass and breeding decisions in birds that winter at different locations (Nuuk and Disko Bay, Greenland, and Newfoundland, Canada; assessed …


Foraging Tactics In Dynamic Sea-Ice Habitats Affect Individual State In A Long-Ranging Seabird, Arnaud Tarroux, Yves Cherel, Per Fauchald, Akiko Kato, Oliver P. Love, Yan Ropert-Coudert, Gunnar Spreen, Øystein Varpe, Henri Weimerskirch, Nigel G. Yoccoz, Sandrine Zahn, Sébastien Descamps Sep 2020

Foraging Tactics In Dynamic Sea-Ice Habitats Affect Individual State In A Long-Ranging Seabird, Arnaud Tarroux, Yves Cherel, Per Fauchald, Akiko Kato, Oliver P. Love, Yan Ropert-Coudert, Gunnar Spreen, Øystein Varpe, Henri Weimerskirch, Nigel G. Yoccoz, Sandrine Zahn, Sébastien Descamps

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Individual heterogeneity in diet and foraging behaviour is common in wild animal populations, and can be a strong determinant of how populations respond to environmental changes. Within populations, variation in foraging behaviour and the occurrence of individual tactics in relation to resources distribution can help explain differences in individual fitness, and ultimately identify important factors affecting population dynamics. We examined how foraging behaviour and habitat during the breeding period related to the physiological state of a long-ranging seabird adapted to sea ice, the Antarctic petrel Thalassoica antarctica. Firstly, using GPS tracking and state-switching movement modelling (hidden Markov models) on 124 …


Integrating Complementary Methods To Improve Diet Analysis In Fishery-Targeted Species, Jordan K. Matley, Gregory E. Maes, Floriaan Devloo-Delva, Roger Huerlimann, Gladys Chua, Andrew J. Tobin, Aaron T. Fisk, Colin A. Simpfendorfer, Michelle R. Heupel Sep 2018

Integrating Complementary Methods To Improve Diet Analysis In Fishery-Targeted Species, Jordan K. Matley, Gregory E. Maes, Floriaan Devloo-Delva, Roger Huerlimann, Gladys Chua, Andrew J. Tobin, Aaron T. Fisk, Colin A. Simpfendorfer, Michelle R. Heupel

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Developing efficient, reliable, cost-effective ways to identify diet is required to understand trophic ecology in complex ecosystems and improve food web models. A combination of techniques, each varying in their ability to provide robust, spatially and temporally explicit information can be applied to clarify diet data for ecological research. This study applied an integrative analysis of a fishery-targeted species group—Plectropomus spp. in the central Great Barrier Reef, Australia, by comparing three diet-identification approaches. Visual stomach content analysis provided poor identification with ~14% of stomachs sampled resulting in identification to family or lower. A molecular approach was successful with prey from …


Bioaccumulation Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs) In Atlantic Sea Bream (Archosargus Rhomboidalis) From Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, Ann-Teneil O'Connor, Dwight Robinson, Tara P. Dasgupta, Aaron T. Fisk, Ken G. Drouillard Jul 2017

Bioaccumulation Of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (Pcbs) In Atlantic Sea Bream (Archosargus Rhomboidalis) From Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, Ann-Teneil O'Connor, Dwight Robinson, Tara P. Dasgupta, Aaron T. Fisk, Ken G. Drouillard

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Multiple sizes of Sea bream were collected from Kingston Harbour, Jamaica, to assess steady state bioaccumulation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a tropical fish. Sea beam fork lengths ranged from 7.3-21.5 cm (n=36 fish) and tissue lipids decreased with body length. Larger fish had lower δ13C isotopes compared to smaller fish, suggesting a change in diet. Linear regressions showed no differences in lipid equivalent sum PCB concentrations with size. However, differences in individual congener bioaccumulation trajectories occurred. Less hydrophobic PCBs decreased with increasing body length, intermediate PCBs showed no trend, whereas highly hydrophobic (above log KOW of …


Latitudinal Variation In Ecological Opportunity And Intraspecific Competition Indicates Differences In Niche Variability And Diet Specialization Of Arctic Marine Predators, David J. Yurkowski, Steven Ferguson, Emily S. Choy, Lisa L. Loseto, Tanya M. Brown, Derek Cg Muir, Christina Ad Semeniuk, Aaron T. Fisk Jan 2016

Latitudinal Variation In Ecological Opportunity And Intraspecific Competition Indicates Differences In Niche Variability And Diet Specialization Of Arctic Marine Predators, David J. Yurkowski, Steven Ferguson, Emily S. Choy, Lisa L. Loseto, Tanya M. Brown, Derek Cg Muir, Christina Ad Semeniuk, Aaron T. Fisk

Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research Publications

Individual specialization (IS), where individuals within populations irrespective of age, sex, and body size are either specialized or generalized in terms of resource use, has implications on ecological niches and food web structure. Niche size and degree of IS of near-top trophic-level marine predators have been little studied in polar regions or with latitude. We quantified the largescale latitudinal variation of population- and individual-level niche size and IS in ringed seals (Pusa hispida) and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on 379 paired ringed seal liver and muscle samples and 124 paired beluga skin and …