Grey seal breeding colonies are stressful places. Hundreds or even thousands of females arrive on shore every autumn, jostling and moving about to find the perfect spot to give birth and nurse their pups. As the season progresses, pups begin to wander about, trying to avoid the hormonal males who are picking fights and waiting […]
Read More Being IndividualBoth wildlife and humans depend on marine coastal habitats and the species that reside there, but these places are experiencing changing environmental conditions and human activity, which could potentially harm coastal resources. In order for state and federal agencies to manage and protect these environments, methods are needed to detect changes in coastal environments over […]
Read More Coastal Molecular MonitoringSattler R, Bishop AM, Polasek L. 2020. Cortisol Levels for Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Steller Sea Lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in Human Care. Aquatic Mammals, 46: 146-151. Open Access Feeling stressed? Repeating the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy advice “Don’t Panic” to yourself? You’re not alone…in more ways than you may know! All animals experience ‘stress’. We’ve […]
Read More Stressful timesPaper in a Nutshell: Bishop, Dubel, Sattler, Brown, Horning. 2019. Wanted dead or alive: characterizing likelihood of juvenile Steller sea lion predation from diving and space use patterns. Endangered Species Research. Endangered species is a topic that we can all relate to. Whether it is a Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) that is living in your […]
Read More A Steller StudyPaper in a Nutshell: Nielsen, Christiansen, et.al. 2019. Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) Stomach Contents and Stable Isotope Values Reveal an Ontogenetic Dietary Shift. Frontiers in Marine Science. What can sharks tell us about ocean food webs? The ocean is full of creatures, from benthic invertebrates to pelagic fish to the largest mammals in the world. […]
Read More WHO’S EATING WHAT?Paper in a Nutshell:Constraint lines and performance envelopes in behavioral physiology: the case of the aerobic dive limit. Markus Horning, Frontiers in Physiology 2012; 3:381 All humans have a blind spot (puntum caecum in medical parlance): if you look directly at something it’s hard to see, but if you look to the side it becomes […]
Read More Data in the blind spotAllen et al. 2019. “Muscular apoptosis but not oxidative stress increases with old age in a long-lived diver, the Weddell seal” Journal of Experimental Biology. You’ve likely heard of “dog years” before, but what about seal years? Do wild animals age the same way that pets and humans do? Turns out – we don’t always […]
Read More Age: Is it really just a number?Horning M, et al. 2019. Best practice recommendations for the use of external telemetry devices on pinnipeds. Animal Biotelemetry, 7(1), 1-17. Open Access As scientists, we often connect with each other over a coffee at conferences, through message boards on online forums, and more recently through various social media outlets such as blogging and twitter. Connecting with […]
Read More Instruction manuals for scientistsSteingass S, Horning M, Bishop AM. Space use of Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii) from two haulout locations along the Oregon coast. PloS one. 2019 Jul 31;14(7):e0219484. Click Here for Open Access Paper A quickly changing coastline The Oregon coast is a dynamic and vibrant 363-mile stretch of the eastern Pacific. While a few […]
Read More Paper in a nutshell: Harbor Seal movements along the Oregon CoastA great new paper from a former ASLC graduate student, Courtney Shuert, who is now working on her PhD in the UK. In this paper, Courtney shares how scientists can use emerging technology like accelerometers to better understand the behavior of wild animals!
Read More Paper in a nutshell: Accelerometers, Machine Learning, and BehaviourPaper in a Nutshell Bishop AM, Brown CB, Rehberg M, Torres L, & Horning M. 2018. Juvenile Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) utilization distributions in the Gulf of Alaska. Movement Ecology, 6:6 Open Access *** It is a Saturday morning. You wake up, walk to your kitchen, and make breakfast. Maybe you then head out […]
Read More Home Sweet Home RangePaper in a nutshell based on the recent publication: Counihan, K (2018) The physiological effects of oil, dispersant and dispersed oil on the bay mussel, Mytilus trossulus, in Arctic/Subarctic conditions. Aquatic Toxicology 199:220-231. Oil spills have a major impact on coastal environments, and dispersants are used to help speed up oil degradation. The combination […]
Read More Mighty Mussels Vs OilHow does a seal capture and eat it’s prey in the water? Several people and institutions came together to investigate this question and explore the evolution of prey processing behaviors in phocine (seals) and otariid (sea lions). This collaborative work included researchers from Monash University in Australia, University of St. Andrews in the UK, Museum of […]
Read More Tooth and ClawThis nutshell is based on a recently published paper: Hoover-Miller and Armato. 2017. Harbor seal use of glacier ice and terrestrial haul-outs in the Kenai Fjords, Alaska. Mar Mamm Sci. Background: Where ice meets the sea Many people come to Alaska to see the impressive tidewater glaciers in the fjords of southeastern and southcentral Alaska. […]
Read More Between a rock and a cold placeNew Paper in a Nutshell: Best practice recommendations for the use of fully implanted telemetry devices in pinnipeds. Horning et al. 2017
Read More Best Practice RecommendationsThis nutshell is about based on a recently published paper about developing methods to detect pregnancy in Steller sea lions.
Read More Is she eating for two?This nutshell is based on a recently published paper: Decline of heterozygosity in a large but isolated population: a 45-year examination of moose genetic diversity on Isle Royale. Renae L. Sattler, Janna R. Willoughby and Bradley J. Swanson. PeerJ 2017 5:e3584. (https://peerj.com/articles/3584.pdf) Question: Should the loss of genetic diversity be a wildlife management concern for […]
Read More A 45-year examination of moose genetic diversity on Isle RoyaleHot off the press, in this new feature, we will share key aspects new papers published by researchers at the ASLC in an informal narrative. This first paper shares the results of a study that sought to investigate any unexpected or potentially problematic response to surgeries or tagging for LHX tag implantation in harbor seals.
Read More LHX tag implantation in harbor seal pups