Title

Climate change and the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) population in Baja California, Mexico

Author

M. Concepción García-Aguilar

Contributor

CUAUHTEMOC TURRENT THOMPSON (Collaborator)

FERNANDO RICARDO ELORRIAGA VERPLANCKEN (Collaborator)

ALEJANDRO ARIAS DEL RAZO (Collaborator)

Yolanda Schramm Urrutia (Collaborator)

Access level

Open Access

Alternative identifier

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193211

Summary or description

The Earth0s climate is warming, especially in the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) breeds and haul-outs on islands and the mainland of Baja California, Mexico, and California, U.S.A. At the beginning of the 21st century, numbers of elephant seals in California are increasing, but the status of Baja California populations is unknown, and some data suggest they may be decreasing. We hypothesize that the elephant seal population of Baja California is experiencing a decline because the animals are not migrating as far south due to warming sea and air temperatures. Here we assessed population trends of the Baja California population, and climate change in the region. The numbers of northern elephant seals in Baja California colonies have been decreasing since the 1990s, and both the surface waters off Baja California and the local air temperatures have warmed during the last three decades. We propose that declining population sizes may be attributable to decreased migration towards the southern portions of the range in response to the observed temperature increases. Further research is needed to confirm our hypothesis; however, if true, it would imply that elephant seal colonies of Baja California and California are not demographically isolated which would pose challenges to environmental and management policies between Mexico and the United States. © 2018 García-Aguilar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publisher

William J. Etges, University of Arkansas, United States of America

Publish date

2018

Publication type

Article

Publication version

Published Version

Format

application/pdf

Source

PLoS ONE, Vol.13, No.2, Pags. 1-15

Language

English

Citation suggestion

García-Aguilar MC, Turrent C, Elorriaga-Verplancken FR, Arias-Del-Razo A, Schramm Y (2018) Climate change and the northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) population in Baja California, Mexico. PLoS ONE 13(2): e0193211. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193211

Source repository

Repositorio Institucional CICESE

Downloads

21

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