The Alaska SeaLife Center, Alaska’s premier public aquarium and Alaska's only permanent marine mammal rehabilitation facility, is located on the shores of Resurrection Bay in Seward in the U.S. state of Alaska. Open since May 1998, it is dedicated to understanding and maintaining the integrity of the marine ecosystem of Alaska through research, rehabilitation, conservation, and public education. It is the only facility in the world specifically dedicated to studying the northern marine environment and the only one designed at the outset to combine research with public education and visitor components. The Alaska SeaLife Center generates and shares scientific knowledge to promote understanding and stewardship of Alaska's marine ecosystems.The Alaska SeaLife Center project cost $55 million; Exxon Valdez oil spill settlement funds made up the $37.5 million portion of funds dedicated to research and rehabilitation. An additional $12 million was raised by selling bonds, and $1.1 million was raised locally through private donations.The Alaska SeaLife Center is a private, non-profit corporation with approximately 105 full-time employees and a staff of volunteers and interns.In September 2011, the Alaska SeaLife Center was granted accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. This acknowledgment places the ASLC in the top tier of their field as less than 5% of the nation's 6000 zoos and aquariums currently have this standard of certification.S.
Climatic extremes can impact the productivity of aquatic species, affecting ecosystems and fishery-dependent communities. Advances in climate products, such as gridded datasets and downscaled projections, may be useful for quantifying freshwater habitat conditions and predicting climate change effects on fish. However, limited guidance exists for selecting climate products to develop indicators of freshwater habitat conditions that influence fish population dynamics. Here, we develop an approach for identifying streamflow and stream temperature models to address this need. We evaluated skill in predicted versus observed streamflow and stream temperature, with predictions depending on different models and gridded climate data as inputs. The best performing models were used in a case study exploring habitat conditions influencing Chinook salmon in the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins, two remote high-latitude watersheds with few in situ habitat observations and recent salmon declines. Three modeled streamflow datasets had variable performance (median Nash-Sutcliffe efficiencies from 0.39 to 0.70). Three gridded temperature products differed in their ability to explain variation in weekly stream temperatures (median r 2 from 0.42 to 0.76). We selected a single gridded air temperature dataset to compare two novel predictive stream temperature models, both of which had good accuracy (root mean squared error [RMSE] of 1.19 and 0.95 degrees C). Stream temperature indicators calculated from modeled daily data, maximum temperatures during adult migration and cumulative temperatures during juvenile rearing, had high spatial correlation across tributaries within the Yukon and Kuskokwim River basins and showed significant warming over the past 40 years. Streamflow indicators calculated from modeled daily data, maximum flow during spawning and median flow during rearing, had few trends and were largely uncorrelated within the Yukon River basin and moderately correlated within the Kuskokwim River basin. Overall, we found that generic measures of model performance varied considerably, and it was important to consider the models best suited to our case study. For both streamflow and stream temperature, multiple high-performing models allowed estimation of ecologically relevant conditions affecting Chinook salmon. The approach we used to estimate local-scale habitat conditions has value to identify synchronous conditions that may influence multiple salmon populations under a changing subarctic climate.
Omnivores often face tradeoffs between selecting for spatially dispersed energy-dense vertebrate prey versus densely distributed herbivorous resources that have limited energetic value per unit intake. Arctic grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) are large omnivores within a resource-limited ecosystem that are known to exhibit smaller body masses and occur at lower densities than grizzly bears in other regions of North America. We evaluated the energy balance of Arctic grizzly bears during a portion of the fall hyperphagic period in two ecologically differing regions on Alaska’s northern Arctic coast by monitoring mass change, food intake, activity, and energy expenditure of 12 individuals over 17–22 days. Bears in coastal areas were more carnivorous than bears in the foothills that were predominantly herbivorous and frugivorous. Carnivory was associated with greater movement, body fat, and energy expenditure and two of four carnivorous bears lost mass. Overall, the mean body fat of the bears in this study was 34 x = 3
Animal movements contribute to the spread of infectious diseases and are driven in part by environmental conditions. We investigated the links among the environment, animal movement, and infectious disease dynamics in waterfowl, which are among the primary wildlife hosts of avian influenza viruses. By combining telemetry data on 4606 individuals from 26 waterfowl species with data on land cover, weather, and vegetation, we found that waterfowl moved less in areas of higher land cover heterogeneity and higher human population density. Moreover, predicted waterfowl movement distances were weakly but positively correlated with distances between detections of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild waterfowl, suggesting that environmental conditions might contribute to the spread of this disease via their effects on bird movements. By considering wildlife movements alongside other drivers of infectious disease dynamics, such as livestock production and human mobility, we move closer to predicting outbreaks and informing interventions.
Arctic seals live in dynamic environments characterized by the seasonal advancement and retreat of sea ice. These amphibious marine mammals rely on sea ice as a haul-out substrate for rest and key life-history events, but they spend the majority of their time in the water. Current and predicted sea ice loss highlights the importance of estimating the costs of in-water activities when modelling the energy budgets of free-ranging seals under changing conditions. Yet, activity-specific costs are not available for many affected species. We used open-flow respirometry to measure and compare resting metabolic rates with the energetic costs of submerged diving and swimming in spotted (Phoca largha; n = 3), ringed (Pusa hispida; n = 1) and bearded seals (Erignathus barbatus; n = 1). Individuals were trained to voluntarily complete a sustained stationary breath hold under water or a continuous submerged swim before surfacing in a metabolic dome to measure rate of oxygen consumption. Metabolic rates decreased 11-24% relative to resting metabolic rate for the spotted and ringed seals while diving for 3, 5, or 7 min and did not change with increasing duration. The bearded seal did not show a similar decrease in diving metabolism. All individuals exhibited notable energetic increases to support exercise underwater while swimming at preferred speeds for 2-3 min. Metabolic costs were 243% and 114% above resting levels for spotted and ringed seals, but only 60% greater for the bearded seal. These results reveal the conflicting physiological responses of metabolic suppression while submerged (i.e. dive response) with the oxygen requirements of active swimming (i.e. exercise response) in Arctic seals and highlight the unique physiology of the bearded seal. The cost of submerged activities can now be considered in quantitative models of ice seal energy budgets, improving understanding of how physiological differences influence species-specific tolerance or vulnerability to rapidly changing Arctic conditions.
Introduction: The northeast Pacific marine heatwave (PMH) of 2014–2016 had strong impacts on many species across a vast region. Impacts on upper trophic species, such as reduced survival and reproduction, were a clear consequence of reduced food availability.Materials and methods: We conducted a long-term individual-based study of behavior and vital rates in endangered Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in the Gulf of Alaska. Vital rates were estimated using robust design multi-state mark–recapture statistical methods.Results: After parturition, the duration of maternal attendance declined significantly during 2015–2018 and again in 2021 compared to earlier years of this study. Prior to the PMH, adult female survival rates for sea lions were approximately 93%, irrespective of parturition status. Beginning in 2016, and the years following the PMH, survival dropped to 77% for females giving birth and 85% for females that were barren, demonstrating an important cost of reproduction in terms of future survival. Females born in 2016 delayed their age at first reproduction by 1 year compared to females born in earlier years, while adult female reproductive rates declined from >70% prior to 2016, to around 60% during the years 2016–2018, as a greater proportion of mature females skipped a year of giving birth. Following the PMH years, there was also an increased lactation interval as a greater proportion of juveniles suckled beyond one year of age. Extended lactation buffered against a reduction in juvenile survival, but had a negative impact on adult female survival.Conclusions: Changes in animal behavior and vital rates can be expected during periods of reduced resource availability, but adult survival should be favored over juvenile survival and reproduction in slow-living K-selected species such as the Steller sea lion. We found that adult females will bear a cost of reproduction in terms of future survival and reproductive potential during these periods. Furthermore, a preference to nurse offspring for additional years represented a type of selfless behavior that also reduced maternal survival probabilities and may ultimately compromise population stability.
