On Shore Spatial Ecology of Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay

Project ID: G13AC00293

Federal Agency: U.S. Geological Survey

Partner Institution: University of Washington

Fiscal Year: 2013

Initial Funding: $35,100

Total Funding: $35,100

Project Type: Technical Assistance

Project Disciplines: Biological

Principal Investigator: Laidre, Kristin

Agreement Technical Representative: Atwood, Todd

Abstract: This cooperative agreement will provide support for the project titled: ‘”Onshore Spatial Ecology of Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay”. Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations have varying strategies for coping with seasonal Sea ice formation and recession: bears in seasonal sea ice ecoregions spend up to 3 months on land fasting during summer, whereas bears in divergent sea ice Ecoregions historically remain on the pack ice it recedes from land. Although recent sea ice loss has compromised the effectiveness of these strategies with consequent population level impacts in many areas, little is known about the adaptive behavioral plasticity of polar bears. The proposed research will integrate field work with habitat and modeling to examine life history and resource selection plasticity for two polar bear populations: southern Beaufort Sea (SB) in the divergent ice ecoregion (Alaska) and Baffin Bay (BB) in the seasonal ice ecoregion (between Canada and Greenland).
The specific objectives of this work will be to: 1) compare onshore arrival and departure dates ofradio—tagged bears relative to the timing of sea ice break—up in summer and reformation in fall; 2) compare movement behavior and activity patterns of bears in both populations and different sex and age classes; and 3) compare onshore patterns of spatial distribution relative to habitat and landscape covariates, including anthropogenic activity. The results from this work will be further used to inform a Bayesian Network model which forecasts the distribution and abundance of global polar bear populations under scenarios of a changing climate.