Combining simulation modeling and stable isotope analyses to reconstruct the last known movements of one of Nature's giants.

ABSTRACT: The spatial ecology of rare, migratory oceanic animals is difficult to study directly. Where incremental tissues are available, their chemical composition can provide valuable indirect observations of movement and diet. Interpreting the chemical record in incremental tissues can be highly uncertain, however, as multiple mechanisms interact to produce the observed data. Simulation modeling is one approach for considering alternative hypotheses in ecology and can be used to consider the relative likelihood of obtaining an observed record under different combinations of ecological and environmental processes. Here we show how a simulation modeling approach can help to infer movement behaviour based on stable carbon isotope profiles measured in incremental baleen tissues of a blue whale (Ba

SUBMITTER: Trueman CN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6802580 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature