Projecting the future of a threatened marine mammal in relation to climate warming.

ABSTRACT: Climate warming is expected to impact global biodiversity, especially in the rapidly warming Arctic. There is an urgent need to evaluate the demographic effects of climate warming under different greenhouse gas emission pathways to guide wildlife management and inform listing decisions under protected species legislation. We used forecasted environmental variables to drive a novel demographic model for the ringed seal (Pusa hispida), a circumpolar Arctic marine mammal and critical subsistence resource for Indigenous people. Under the most demographically plausible conditions and assumptions, the projected abundance of ringed seals in the Chukchi Sea west of Alaska, USA, changed by an average of -7% (range -25% to 4%) by 2058 and -71% (range -96% to -8%) by 2100. The choice of greenhouse ga

SUBMITTER: Regehr EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12683699 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature