title: Tracking apex marine predator movements in a dynamic ocean.
abstract: Pelagic marine predators face unprecedented challenges and uncertain futures. Overexploitation and climate variability impact the abundance and distribution of top predators in ocean ecosystems. Improved understanding of ecological patterns, evolutionary constraints and ecosystem function is critical for preventing extinctions, loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services. Recent advances in electronic tagging techniques have provided the capacity to observe the movements and long-distance migrations of animals in relation to ocean processes across a range of ecological scales. Tagging of Pacific Predators, a field programme of the Census of Marine Life, deployed 4,306 tags on 23 species in the North Pacific Ocean, resulting in a tracking data set of unprecedented scale and species diversity that covers 265,386 tracking days from 2000 to 2009. Here we report migration pathways, link ocean features to multispecies hotspots and illustrate niche partitioning within and among congener guilds. Our results indicate that the California Current large marine ecosystem and the North Pacific transition zone attract and retain a diverse assemblage of marine vertebrates. Within the California Current large marine ecosystem, several predator guilds seasonally undertake north-south migrations that may be driven by oceanic processes, species-specific thermal tolerances and shifts in prey distributions. We identify critical habitats across multinational boundaries and show that top predators exploit their environment in predictable ways, providing the foundation for spatial management of large marine ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Stanford University, Biology Department, Hopkins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, California 93950, USA. bblock@stanford.edu
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Block
authors.forename: I D
authors.initials: ID
authors.lastname: Jonsen
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Jorgensen
authors.forename: A J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Winship
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Shaffer
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Bograd
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Hazen
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Foley
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Breed
authors.forename: A-L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Ganong
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Swithenbank
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Castleton
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dewar
authors.forename: B R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Mate
authors.forename: G L
authors.initials: GL
authors.lastname: Shillinger
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Weise
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.forename: D P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Costa
mesh_terms: D000823:Animal Identification Systems; D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000502:physiology*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D044822:Biodiversity; D002140:California; D002980:Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology*; D009656:North America; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011235:Predatory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D012621:Seasons; D013045:Species Specificity; D014872:Water Movements; D055814:Wilderness