ArticleBMC ecology2020
Leopard seal diets in a rapidly warming polar region vary by year, season, sex, and body size.
Article in BMC ecology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Regional variations in the diet of the South Polar Skua (Stercorarius maccormicki) in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica.PloS one · 2026Article
- Genomic analyses reveal trans-generational haul out site fidelity in leopard seals.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Stable isotopic composition of Antarctic and Patagonian marine mammals collected before and during industrial-scale whaling: assessing the baseline for long-term changes in the marine ecosystem.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Assessing the influence of blubber stratification on the estimation of diet in phocid seals using the MixSIAR model.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Deep origins, distinct adaptations, and species-level status indicated for a glacial relict seal.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Individual Specialization in a Generalist Apex Predator: The Leopard Seal.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Reference genome of the leopard seal (Frontiers in genetics · 2025Article
- CS-PHOC: weekly census counts of Southern Ocean phocids at Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island.Scientific data · 2024Article
- Genetic diversity and demographic history of the leopard seal: A Southern Ocean top predator.PloS one · 2023Article
- Trade-offs between foraging reward and mortality risk drive sex-specific foraging strategies in sexually dimorphic northern elephant seals.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Complementary use of stable isotopes and fatty acids for quantitative diet estimation of sympatric predators, the Antarctic pack-ice seals.Oecologia · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResolving the preferred prey items and dietary proportions of leopard seals is central to understanding food-web dynamics in the rapidly-warming Antarctic Peninsula region. Previous studies have identified a wide range of prey items; however, due to anecdotal or otherwise limited information, leopard seal diets remain unresolved by seal sex, individual, body size, region, and season. Over the 2013, 2014, and 2017 field seasons we collected scat, tissue samples (red blood cells and plasma; n = 23) for stable isotope analyses, and previously-reported animal-borne video from 19 adult leopard seals foraging near mesopredator breeding colonies at Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island. We summarized a priori diet information from scat and video analysis and applied a three-isotope (δ
resultsThe austral spring diets of males and females focused on Antarctic krill (31.7-38.0%), notothen fish (31.6-36.5%), and penguin (24.4-26.9%) and were consistent across all 3 years. Several lines of evidence suggest the transition to summer foraging was distinct for males and females. Female diets transitioned rapidly to higher δ
conclusionsThe seasonal increase in leopard seal δ
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