7/30/2023 0 Comments Polar bears predators and preysThe map found that the benthic part had many connections on its food chain similar to its pelagic counterpart, as summarized by Live Science.Īlso Read: Consequences of Climate Change: Polar Bear Population Shrinking Due to Arctic Sea Ice Melt Polar Bears The study was published in the journal PNAS in late December 2022, where researchers examined a coastal marine ecosystem in the Canadian Arctic and found that components within the benthic zone's food web had been significantly ignored.īefore arriving with their conclusion regarding the predatory sea stars, the team created a detailed map of the different food chains around Southampton Island, located in the mouth of Hudson Bay and in the Nunavut territory of Canada. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2017 British Ecological Society.(Photo : Photo by OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)Ī polar bear stands in the water as another one snorts after swimming behind a pod of beluga whales passing near the shoreline of the Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 9, 2022. ![]() Pusa hispida Ursus maritimus Svalbard prey-shifting sea-ice declines spatial overlap. ![]() ![]() Shifts in ecological interactions are likely to become more widespread in many ecosystems as both predators and prey respond to changing environmental conditions induced by global warming, highlighting the importance of multi-species studies. Our results indicate that sea-ice declines have impacted the degree of spatial overlap and hence the strength of the predator-prey relationship between polar bears and ringed seals, with consequences for the wider Arctic marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Polar bears now move greater distances daily and spend more time close to ground-nesting bird colonies, where bear predation can have substantial local effects. However, ringed seals did not alter their association with glacier fronts during summer, leading to a major decrease in spatial overlap values between these species in Svalbard's coastal areas. Following the sea-ice reduction, polar bears spent the same amount of time close to tidal glacier fronts in the spring but less time in these areas during the summer and autumn. We used linear mixed-effects models to evaluate the association of these species to environmental features and an approach based on Time Spent in Area to investigate changes in spatial overlap between the two species. We attached biotelemetry devices to ringed seals (n = 60, both sexes) and polar bears (n = 67, all females) before (2002-2004) and after (2010-2013) a sudden decline in sea ice in Svalbard. We also investigated whether the spatial overlap between polar bears and their traditionally most important prey, ringed seals (Pusa hispida), has been affected by the sea-ice decline, as polar bears are dependent on a sea-ice platform for hunting seals. We investigated how the movement and space use patterns of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in coastal areas in Svalbard, Norway, have been altered by a sudden decline in sea ice that occurred in 2006. Understanding these alterations can help improve predictive capacity and inform management efforts designed to mitigate against negative impacts. ![]() Climate change is impacting different species at different rates, leading to alterations in biological interactions with ramifications for wider ecosystem functioning.
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