Northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) fly over calm waters in the Bering Sea near the Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Photo credit: © Kevin Schafer / WWF
Wildlife hotspots and conservation gaps
Working together to track and protect Arctic marine predators
In the face of climate change and mounting resource development pressures in the Arctic, conserving Arctic species and their habitats is vital to ensuring continued ecosystem health and stability in the region. DAVID YURKOWSKI explains how an eclectic group of international researchers uncovered specific areas where predators converge—in turn highlighting biodiversity hotspots for conservation protection across the North American Arctic.
Ever wonder where Arctic marine mammals, seabirds and fish spend their time and converge throughout the year? It can be challenging to observe deep-diving or high-flying species in the Arctic’s harsh environment.
The good news: researchers can use biologging telemetry devices (small electronic tracking tags) to monitor an individual animal’s movements and habitat use in near real-time. Some of these devices can even transmit data to satellites in space, allowing researchers to track marine predators’ horizontal and vertical movements (including how these change over time) and the environmental conditions they encounter.
Tag manufacturers and researchers can programme these tags to record fine-scale time series data on a marine mammal’s depth and location as well as the temperature, salinity and fluorescence of the surrounding water. The tags can travel thousands of kilometres with the animals and delineate their habitat use, distribution, foraging behaviour and energetics, among a plethora of other possibilities.
A northern fur seal mother and pup on St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska. Photo credit: © Kevin Schafer / WWF
Mapping predator abundance
Previous studies in the Arctic have tended to focus on single species. We wanted to change that by compiling one of the largest and most comprehensive Arctic marine predator-movement databases ever assembled to answer broader, more comprehensive conservation questions and reveal gaps in protection coverage. This project was an extensive national and international collaboration effort involving 39 researchers from 21 different institutions.
Establishing marine protected areas is an important step towards maintaining and conserving areas of biological importance. However, the world is still well below the goal of protecting 30 per cent of the global ocean by 2030, as agreed to in the historic Kunming–Montreal Biodiversity Framework. Using data on Arctic marine predator movements collected from more than 1,280 individuals spanning 21 species across four different mobile species groups (whales and seals, polar bears, sea birds, and fishes), we identified abundance hotspots in the summer–autumn open-water period and in the winter–spring ice-covered period.
We also mapped species-diversity hotspots across all groups and examined how these overlapped with exclusive economic zones and existing protected areas.
The regions of abundance and species diversity we identified during summer–autumn and winter–spring were in Baffin Bay, Davis Strait, Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Amundsen Gulf, and the Beaufort, Chukchi and Bering seas—not just within certain species, but across species groups. These first-of-their-kind maps showed that hotpots occurred along the continental slope in summer–autumn and shifted offshore into areas of moving pack ice in winter–spring.
Important places for these Arctic marine predators remain largely vulnerable
—David Yurkowski, Research Scientist, Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Identifying protection gaps
The apex and near-apex predators we tracked play a crucial role in structuring Arctic food webs through strong top-down trophic control—meaning their presence influences the abundance and behaviour of species lower in the food chain. This dynamic is a key characteristic of cold-water ecosystems.
We also found that very little of this biodiversity was protected in 2018 (when the study was published): only 5 per cent of summer–autumn species-diversity hotspots and 7 per cent of winter–spring hotspots fell within existing protected areas. This tells us that important places for these Arctic marine predators remain largely vulnerable.
While our research identified numerous geographic areas of importance for Arctic marine predators, it also provides a starting point for policymakers to implement conservation measures, given the multitude of threats facing the Arctic. The good news is that Canada has achieved its internationally agreed-upon target to conserve 25 per cent of its lands and waters by 2025, making it among the first countries to meet this conservation commitment.
Our work shows the value of large international collaborations among Arctic nations. By sharing telemetry resources across borders, researchers can identify conservation priorities more systematically and help decision-makers choose protected areas more effectively. As climate change accelerates, this shared understanding will be critical to protecting the species that underpin Arctic food webs.
By David Yurkowski
Research Scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada
DAVID YURKOWSKI is a research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada who specializes in movement and trophic ecology in Arctic marine ecosystems.
