“Living without frontiers: Marine top consumers as communters between different environments”

K PÜTZ; A SCHIAVINI; A RAYA REY; P TRATHAN; J CROXALL

Ushuaia

Workshop; International Workshop “Interaction between Magellan Region and Antarctic; 2003

Marine top consumers in the Southern Ocean are often restricted to a limited number of breeding places. However, despite this confinement, their far ranging capabilities enable them to cross oceanographic borders and exploit diverse oceanographic areas. The extent of these movements is dependent on a number of factors such as season, breeding stage, gender etc. Various examples for top consumer movements, especially in between Antarctic waters south of the Antarctic convergence and Patagonian Shelf waters will be given, including King penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus from the Falkland Islands, Rockhopper Penguins Eudyptes chrysocome from Isla de los Estados, Argentina, Wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans and Antarctic Fur seals Arctocephalus gazella from South Georgia.