Details of Award

NERC Reference : NER/A/S/2003/00616

Life history optimisation and environmental variability in seals.

Principal Investigator:: Professor JM McNamara, University of Bristol, Mathematics
Co-Investigator:: Professor AI Houston, University of Bristol, Biological Sciences
Co-Investigator:: Professor I Boyd, University of St Andrews, Biology
Grant held at:: University of Bristol, Mathematics

ENRIs:: Global Change; Environmental Risks and Hazards; Biodiversity
Science Topics:: Population Genetics/Evolution; Population Ecology; Conservation Ecology; Behavioural Ecology

Abstract:: This study aims to understand why there are differences in the life history patterns of seals using models of annual routines to predict seal life cycles. Seals are an interesting group to choose for this analysis because they have relatively consistent life history patterns which differ in very specific ways. Furthermore some species have been studied in considerable detail. All seals are constrained by the need to give birth out of the water and this has the potential to separate the nursing mothers from their food over ranges of just a few metres, in the case of ice-breeding species to many hundreds of kilometres in species that give birth on land. The food supply of different species may vary in seasonality and predictability. We wish to understand how the differences in life cycles evolved by recreating the trade-offs which female seals must make between foraging and caring for their offspring at different stages in their lives. This will attempt to distinguish between two ideas about the main evolutionary drivers of seal life histories including predation on the one hand and access to resources on the other.

Authorised funds only

This grant award has a total value of £141,541

Total - Staff	Total - T&S	Total - Other Costs	Total - Indirect Costs
£89,398	£9,208	£1,812	£41,123

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