University of Eastern Finland, Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Joensuu, Finland.
Metsähallitus, Parks & Wildlife Finland, Savonlinna, Finland.
PLoS One. 2019 Jan 4;14(1):e0210266. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0210266. eCollection 2019.
Climate change, together with increasing human activity, poses a threat to the breeding success of endangered landlocked ringed seals (Phoca hispida saimensis). In this study, we estimated the spatial ecology of Saimaa ringed seals during the breeding season in the ice-covered period of December-April. The telemetry data on tagged seals (n = 20), with a total of 25 separate tracking periods and birth lair locations (n = 59) of non-tagged seals, were studied to estimate the movement ecology and breeding density. The movements of the ringed seals were more restricted during the ice-covered season; the total home range size (average 7.4 km2) in winter was 13 times smaller than that in summer. Individual tagged seals occupied an average of 5 ± 3 SD subnivean haul outs (snow lairs or ice cavities), and the mean distance between the haul outs was 1.6 ± 1.1 SD km (range 0.2-5.9 km). Moreover, our data indicated that ringed seal females likely exhibited breeding time avoidance of each other's core areas, which may indicate some degree of territoriality. This was supported by the findings that the core areas (mean 1.2 km2) of tagged adult females (n = 9), did not overlap with each other. Also data on non-tagged seals showed that females did not give birth to pups within the core area radius of other parturient females. This study, together with earlier findings on the home ranges of nursed pups and perinatal mortality rates, has implications into land usage planning in Lake Saimaa by highlighting the need of undisturbed area between seal lairs and anthropogenic disturbances.
气候变化以及人类活动的增加，对内陆环斑海豹（Phoca hispida saimensis）的繁殖成功构成了威胁。本研究旨在评估 12 月至 4 月冰期内圈养环斑海豹的繁殖季节的空间生态。我们研究了标记海豹（n = 20）的遥测数据，总共有 25 个独立的追踪期和非标记海豹的出生洞穴位置（n = 59），以估算运动生态学和繁殖密度。海豹在冰期的活动范围受到更多限制；冬季的总家域大小（平均 7.4 平方公里）比夏季小 13 倍。个体标记海豹平均占据 5 ± 3 SD 个亚雪下洞穴（雪洞或冰洞），且亚雪下洞穴之间的平均距离为 1.6 ± 1.1 SD 公里（范围 0.2-5.9 公里）。此外，我们的数据表明，环斑海豹的雌性可能会避免在彼此的核心区域繁殖，这可能表明它们具有一定程度的领地性。这一发现得到了以下支持：标记成年雌性（n = 9）的核心区域（平均 1.2 平方公里）彼此不重叠。此外，对非标记海豹的数据显示，雌性不在其他分娩雌性的核心区域半径内产仔。这项研究与以前关于哺乳期幼崽和围产期死亡率的家域研究一起，强调了在塞马湖地区海豹洞穴和人为干扰之间需要未受干扰的区域，这对土地使用规划具有重要意义。
