National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
United States Department of Commerce


 

FY 2011

Seascape as an organizing principle for evaluating walrus and seal sea-ice habitat in Beringia

Ray, G.C., J.E. Overland, and G.L. Hufford

Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L20504, 6 pp, doi: 10.1029/2010GL044452 (2010)


The term "seascape", as used here, relates the natural history of ice-dependent pinnipeds to their sea-ice environments at different spatial scales, following concepts of landscape ecology. Habitats are characterized by heterogeneous but repeatable structures of sea ice. As an example, multiple mesoscale (3–50 km) seascapes present conditions for different ecological preferences of five Beringian ice-dependent pinnipeds, as observed during 2006–2009 winter-spring icebreaker cruises. Seascape partitioning concepts are important for understanding and projecting species' responses to change under climate-change scenarios.



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