Bartolino, Valerio
- Department of Aquatic Resources (SLU Aqua), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Classifying movement behaviour of marine predators in relation to anthropogenic activity and environmental conditions is important to guide marine conservation. We studied the relationship between grey seal (Halichoerus grypus) behaviour and environmental variability in the southwestern Baltic Sea where seal-fishery conflicts are increasing. We used multiple environmental covariates and proximity to active fishing nets within a multivariate hidden Markov model (HMM) to quantify changes in movement behaviour of grey seals while at sea. Dive depth, dive duration, surface duration, horizontal displacement, and turning angle were used to identify travelling, resting and foraging states. The likelihood of seals foraging increased in deeper, colder, more saline waters, which are sites with increased primary productivity and possibly prey densities. Proximity to active fishing net also had a pronounced effect on state occupancy. The probability of seals foraging was highest
Published in
Scientific Reports
2019, volume: 9, article number: 5642
Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
UKÄ Subject classification
Behavioral Sciences Biology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42109-w
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/99662