Abstract
Gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) have been rapidly recolonizing the Northeast US coast, eliciting concern from the fishing industry. However, the ecological effect of this recovery is still unknown and as such, research is needed to better understand how the diet composition of gray seals in US waters will contribute to the ecological impact. While previous research on seal diets has focused on the analysis of hard prey remains, stable isotope analysis presents an alternative method that can be used to describe marine mammal diets when direct observation is impossible. To address this issue, we used stable isotope analysis of gray seal pup vibrissae and lanugo from Monomoy Island, Cape Cod, MA during the 2015/2016 winter breeding season to estimate adult female diet composition during pregnancy. Stable isotope mixing models (SIMM) suggested adult female gray seals were consuming greater amounts of cephalopod prey and less sand lance than previously indicated from analysis of hard prey remains. However, using SIMMs to estimate the diet composition of gray seals remains difficult due to the large number of isotopically similar prey species and uncertainty in tissue-specific, stable isotope trophic enrichment factors. Even so, by combining prey sources into ecologically informative groups and integrating prior information into SIMMs it is possible to obtain additional insights into the diet of this generalist predator.
Highlights
The gray seal’s (Halichoerus grypus) return from near extirpation to the Northeastern United States has been celebrated by conservationists but has reignited controversy with some in the fishing industry [1,2,3,4,5]
The objective of our study is to evaluate the ability of stable isotopes analysis and Stable isotope mixing models (SIMM) to provide high confidence estimates of the diet composition of gray seals in US waters
Determining specific prey sources for this generalist predator remains difficult with stable isotope analysis
Summary
The gray seal’s (Halichoerus grypus) return from near extirpation to the Northeastern United States has been celebrated by conservationists but has reignited controversy with some in the fishing industry [1,2,3,4,5]. This is because there is the potential for these seals to be predators of many fish species in economically significant fisheries [6,7]. Stable isotope analysis of the foraging ecology of the US gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) population niaid.nih.gov/) to JAR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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