National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, Washington 98115-6349, USA.
Ecol Appl. 2012 Mar;22(2):668-84. doi: 10.1890/11-0102.1.
We created a Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) to investigate ecosystem relationships between the physical ecosystem (sea ice extent), a prey measure (krill density), predator behaviors (diving and foraging effort of female Antarctic fur seals, Arctocephalus gazella, with pups) and predator characteristics (mass of maternal fur seals and pups). We collected data on Antarctic fur seals from 1987/1988 to 1994/1995 at Seal Island, Antarctica. The BHM allowed us to link together predators and prey into a model that uses all the data efficiently and accounts for major sources of uncertainty. Based on the literature, we made hypotheses about the relationships in the model, which we compared with the model outcome after fitting the BHM. For each BHM parameter, we calculated the mean of the posterior density and the 95% credible interval. Our model confirmed others' findings that increased sea ice was related to increased krill density. Higher krill density led to reduced dive intensity of maternal fur seals, as measured by dive depth and duration, and to less time spent foraging by maternal fur seals. Heavier maternal fur seals and lower maternal foraging effort resulted in heavier pups at 22 d. No relationship was found between krill density and maternal mass, or between maternal mass and foraging effort on pup growth rates between 22 and 85 days of age. Maternal mass may have reflected environmental conditions prior to the pup provisioning season, rather than summer prey densities. Maternal mass and foraging effort were not related to pup growth rates between 22 and 85 d, possibly indicating that food was not limiting, food sources other than krill were being used, or differences occurred before pups reached age 22 d.
我们创建了一个贝叶斯层次模型(BHM),以研究物理生态系统(海冰范围)、猎物指标(磷虾密度)、捕食者行为(有幼崽的雌性南极软毛海豹的潜水和觅食努力)和捕食者特征(母海豹和幼崽的毛皮质量)之间的生态系统关系。我们从 1987/1988 年到 1994/1995 年在南极洲海豹岛收集了南极软毛海豹的数据。BHM 允许我们将捕食者和猎物联系在一起,形成一个模型,该模型有效地利用了所有数据,并考虑了主要的不确定性来源。根据文献,我们对模型中的关系提出了假设,然后将这些假设与拟合 BHM 后的模型结果进行了比较。对于每个 BHM 参数,我们计算了后验密度的平均值和 95%可信区间。我们的模型证实了其他人的发现,即海冰增加与磷虾密度增加有关。较高的磷虾密度导致母海豹潜水强度降低,如潜水深度和持续时间所示,以及母海豹觅食时间减少。母海豹体重增加和觅食努力减少导致 22 日龄幼崽体重增加。我们没有发现磷虾密度与母体重之间、或母体重与幼崽 22-85 日龄生长率之间的关系。母体重可能反映了幼崽供应季节前的环境条件,而不是夏季猎物密度。母体重和觅食努力与 22-85 日龄幼崽的生长率之间没有关系,这可能表明食物不是限制因素,幼崽 22 日龄前可能使用了其他食物来源,或者出现了差异。