TY - JOUR
T1 - Changes in the distribution and activity of female harbour seals during the breeding season
T2 - Implications for their lactation strategy and mating patterns
AU - Thompson, Paul M
AU - Miller, David
AU - Cooper, Richard
AU - Hammond, Philip S.
N1 - We would like to thank Sir A. Nutting, R.D.G. Clarke, D.J. MacPherson and J.D. Robertson for helping us find suitable sites for recording stations. L.A. Calder, F. Praetsch, S. Reddy, D. Tollitt and D. Wood all provided valuable assistance in the field. Drs D.J. Boness, A.D. Hawkins, K.M. Kovacs and P. Watts provided constructive criticism of an earlier draft of this paper. Capture and anaesthesia were conducted under licence from the Scottish Office and the Home Office, respectively. The project was carried out under contracts to Professor P.A. Racey and P.M. Thompson from the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department.
PY - 1994/1/1
Y1 - 1994/1/1
N2 - Studies of pinniped reproductive strategies have concentrated on those species which mate on land. These are primarily otariids, but include a few phocids such as elephant seals, Mirounga leonina and M. angustirostris (Le Boeuf 1974; McCann 1981) and land-breeding grey seals, Halichoerus grypus, (Anderson, Burton & Summers 1975) which fast throughout the lactation period. In contrast, most phocids spend part of the lactation period in the water, during which time they may feed (Andersen & Fedak 1987). These species also tend to form
more dispersed breeding groups, particularly on ice (e.g. Crabeater seals, Lobodon carcinophagus) and several species appear to mate in the water [e.g. Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddelli (Cline, Siniff & Erickson 1971)]. The resulting differences in female dispersion would be expected to result in a wider range of mating patterns than those seen amongst land-breeding pinnipeds (Stirling 1975; Boness 1991; Le Beouf 1991), but few data exist to examine this hypothesis.
AB - Studies of pinniped reproductive strategies have concentrated on those species which mate on land. These are primarily otariids, but include a few phocids such as elephant seals, Mirounga leonina and M. angustirostris (Le Boeuf 1974; McCann 1981) and land-breeding grey seals, Halichoerus grypus, (Anderson, Burton & Summers 1975) which fast throughout the lactation period. In contrast, most phocids spend part of the lactation period in the water, during which time they may feed (Andersen & Fedak 1987). These species also tend to form
more dispersed breeding groups, particularly on ice (e.g. Crabeater seals, Lobodon carcinophagus) and several species appear to mate in the water [e.g. Weddell seals, Leptonychotes weddelli (Cline, Siniff & Erickson 1971)]. The resulting differences in female dispersion would be expected to result in a wider range of mating patterns than those seen amongst land-breeding pinnipeds (Stirling 1975; Boness 1991; Le Beouf 1991), but few data exist to examine this hypothesis.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0028173715&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2307/5579
DO - 10.2307/5579
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0028173715
SN - 0021-8790
VL - 63
SP - 24
EP - 30
JO - Journal of Animal Ecology
JF - Journal of Animal Ecology
IS - 1
ER -