Seals Quickly Respond To Gain And Loss Of Habitat Under Climate Change
Saturday, July 11, 2009 - 23:14
in Biology & Nature
Southern elephant seals responded rapidly to climate and habitat change and established a new breeding site thousands of kilometers from existing breeding grounds, according to new research. Scientists found that when the Antarctic ice sheets of the Ross Sea Embayment retreated in the Holocene period 8,000 years ago, elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, adopted the emergent habitat and established a new population which flourished.