Understanding the relationship between marine mammals and their environment in the Bering Sea.

2009 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 2271
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Miksis-Olds ◽  
Susan E. Parks ◽  
Jeffrey A. Nystuen
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bering Sea

scholarly journals Traditional Diet and Environmental Contaminants in Coastal Chukotka II: Legacy POPs

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey Dudarev ◽  
Valery Chupakhin ◽  
Sergey Vlasov ◽  
Sveta Yamin-Pasternak
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Environmental Contaminants ◽  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Food Contamination ◽  
Dietary Exposure ◽  
Coastal Current ◽  
Home Food ◽  
Daily Intakes ◽  
The Bering Sea

The article is the second in the series of four that present the results of a study on environmental contaminants in coastal Chukotka, conducted in the context of a multi-disciplinary investigation of indigenous foodways in the region. The article presents the results of the analysis of legacy Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) found in the samples of locally harvested food and indoor matters, collected in 2016 in coastal Chukotka. Temporal trends and circumpolar comparisons of POPs in food have been carried out. Estimated daily intakes (EDIs) of POPs by local food consumption were calculated based on the food intake frequencies (questionnaire data). Concentrations of the studied legacy POPs in marine mammal blubber were relatively high (up to 100–200 µg/kg ww) but not exceeding the allowable limits. Gray whale blubber and whale mantak were the most contaminated foods, followed by the ringed, spotted and bearded seal blubber, then by walrus blubber and fermented walrus (deboned walrus parts aged in subterranean pits, typically over a period of 6 months). At the backdrop of general decrease or invariability (compared to the previous coastal Chukotka study 15 years ago) of the majority of POPs, an increasing tendency of HCB, mainly in marine mammals, were noted. Legacy POPs in marine mammals sampled in Chukotka were generally much lower than in those sampled in Alaska and northern Canada. We suggest that the Alaska Coastal Current from the Bering Sea plays a major role in this phenomenon. Analyses of the additional sources of in-home food contamination (home-brewed alcohol, domestic insecticides) have revealed relatively high levels of HCHs, DDTs and PCBs, which still represent a share of dietary exposure of local people to POPs.

scholarly journals Extreme weather events influence dispersal of naive northern fur seals

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 252-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary-Anne Lea ◽  
Devin Johnson ◽  
Rolf Ream ◽  
Jeremy Sterling ◽  
Sharon Melin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Habitat Choice ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
First Year ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Fur Seals ◽  
San Miguel Island ◽  
The Bering Sea

Since 1975, northern fur seal ( Callorhinus ursinus ) numbers at the Pribilof Islands (PI) in the Bering Sea have declined rapidly for unknown reasons. Migratory dispersal and habitat choice may affect first-year survivorship, thereby contributing to this decline. We compared migratory behaviour of 166 naive pups during 2 years from islands with disparate population trends (increasing: Bogoslof and San Miguel Islands; declining: PI), hypothesizing that climatic conditions at weaning may differentially affect dispersal and survival. Atmospheric conditions (Bering Sea) in autumn 2005–2006 were anomalously cold, while 2006–2007 was considerably warmer and less stormy. In 2005, pups departed earlier at all sites, and the majority of PI pups (68–85%) departed within 1 day of Arctic storms and dispersed quickly, travelling southwards through the Aleutian Islands. Tailwinds enabled faster rates of travel than headwinds, a trend not previously shown for marine mammals. Weather effects were less pronounced at Bogoslof Island (approx. 400 km further south), and, at San Miguel Island, (California) departures were more gradual, and only influenced by wind and air pressure in 2005. We suggest that increasingly variable climatic conditions at weaning, particularly timing, frequency and intensity of autumnal storms in the Bering Sea, may alter timing, direction of dispersal and potentially survival of pups.

scholarly journals The relationship between pink salmon biomass and the body condition of short-tailed shearwaters in the Bering Sea: can fish compete with seabirds?

2011 ◽  
Vol 278 (1718) ◽  
pp. 2584-2590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kanako Toge ◽  
Rei Yamashita ◽  
Kentaro Kazama ◽  
Masaaki Fukuwaka ◽  
Orio Yamamura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Body Condition ◽  
Bering Sea ◽  
Pink Salmon ◽  
The Body ◽  
Oncorhynchus Gorbuscha ◽  
Catch Per Unit Effort ◽  
Study Region ◽  
Top Predators ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Bering Sea

Seabirds and large fishes are important top predators in marine ecosystems, but few studies have explored the potential for competition between these groups. This study investigates the relationship between an observed biennial change of pink salmon ( Oncorhynchus gorbuscha ) biomass in the central Bering Sea (23 times greater in odd-numbered than in even-numbered years) and the body condition and diet of the short-tailed shearwater ( Puffinus tenuirostris ) that spends the post-breeding season there. Samples were collected with research gill nets over seven summers. Both species feed on krill, small fishes and squid. Although the mean pink salmon catch per unit effort (in mass) over the study region was not related significantly with shearwater's stomach content mass or prey composition, the pink salmon biomass showed a negative and significant relationship with the shearwater's body mass and liver mass (proxies of energy reserve). We interpret these results as evidence that fishes can negatively affect mean prey intake of seabirds if they feed on a shared prey in the pelagic ecosystem.

Detecting marine mammals with an adaptive sub-sampling recorder in the Bering Sea

2010 ◽  
Vol 71 (11) ◽  
pp. 1087-1092 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Miksis-Olds ◽  
Jeffrey A. Nystuen ◽  
Susan E. Parks
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
The Bering Sea

scholarly journals A preliminary acoustical survey of echolocating marine mammals in the Bering Sea

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerri D. Seger ◽  
Jennifer Miksis-Olds ◽  
Bruce Martin
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
The Bering Sea

A preliminary acoustic survey of echolocating marine mammals in the Bering Sea

2016 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
pp. 3359-3359
Author(s):  
Kerri Seger ◽  
Jennifer Miksis-Olds ◽  
Bruce Martin
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Acoustic Survey ◽  
The Bering Sea

scholarly journals Advances in Ecosystem Research: Saildrone Surveys of Oceanography, Fish, and Marine Mammals in the Bering Sea

Oceanography ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin Mordy ◽  
◽  
Edward Cokelet ◽  
Alex De Robertis ◽  
Richard Jenkins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bering Sea ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
The Bering Sea
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