The Polar Ecosystems Program conducts research and monitoring on pinnipeds in the Arctic, sub-Arctic, and Antarctic marine ecosystems. The research projects focus primarily on abundance, trends, distribution, and foraging behavior of harbor, bearded, ringed, spotted, and ribbon seals in Alaska. The primary objectives of the program are to support management and assessment of population status under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and to gain a better understanding of the factors responsible for the dynamics of populations and their roles in the ecosystem.
Program Leader: Peter Boveng
Note: The National Marine Mammal Laboratory (NMML) has recently changed its name to "Marine Mammal Laboratory" (MML). Please be aware that the former name still exists on lower-tier pages which have been retained for historical context.
Recent Reports, Publications, and Posters
Dr. Peter Boveng explains how NOAA Fisheries scientists are working to
protect and study threatened ice seals as the climate changes.
- Aleutian Harbor Seal Telemetry Study
- Ice Seal Distribution Data
- U.S.-Russia Collaborative Ice Seal Survey, April-May 2012
- Seal Disease Outbreak in Arctic - Updated Nov 2011
- Bering Sea Research Cruise '09 on the McArthur II
- UAS Test Flights, NOAA Oscar Dyson
- Ice Seal Breeding Ecology Cruise '08, NOAA Oscar Dyson
- Ice Seal Abundance Survey '08, USCG Polar Sea
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Harbor Seal Research in the Aleutian Islands, 2015
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Successful Harbor Seal Survey Throughout Alaska
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A Research Cruise to Study the Ecology of Ice-Associated Seals in the Central Bering Sea Aboard the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson in April 2014
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Bering Okhotsk Seal Surveys (BOSS) Joint U.S.-Russian Aerial Surveys for Ice-associated Seals, 2012-13
- LEFEBVRE, K. A., L. QUAKENBUSH, E. FRAME, K. B. HUNTINGTON, G. SHEFFIELD, R. STIMMELMAYR, A. BRYAN, P. KENDRICK, H. ZIEL, T. GOLDSTEIN, J. A. SNYDER, T. GELATT, F. GULLAND, B. DICKERSON, and V. GILL.
2016. Prevalence of algal toxins in Alaskan marine mammals foraging in a changing Arctic and subarctic environment. Harmful Algae 55:13-24. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hal.2016.01.007 Online.
- KING, R., B. T. McCLINTOCK, D. KIDNEY, and D. BORCHERS.
2016. Capture-recapture abundance estimation using a semi-complete data likelihood approach. Ann. Appl. Stat. 10(1):264-285.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AOAS890 Online.
- ISAAK, D. J., M. K. YOUNG, C. H. LUCE, S. W. HOSTETLER, S. J. WENGER, E. E. PETERSON, J. M. Ver HOEF, M. C. GROCE, D. L. HORAN, and D. E. NAGEL.
2016. Slow climate velocities of mountain streams portend their role as refugia for cold-water biodiversity. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S. 113(16):4374-4379. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1522429113 Online.
- MUTO, M. M., V. T. HELKER, R. P. ANGLISS, B. A. ALLEN, P. L. BOVENG, J. M. BREIWICK, M. F. CAMERON, P. J. CLAPHAM, S. P. DAHLE, M. E. DAHLHEIM, B. S. FADELY, M. C. FERGUSON, L. W. FRITZ, R. C. HOBBS, Y. V. IVASHCHENKO, A. S. KENNEDY, J. M. LONDON, S. A. MIZROCH, R. R. REAM, E. L. RICHMOND, K. E. W. SHELDEN, R. G. TOWELL, P. R. WADE, J. M. WAITE, and A. N. ZERBINI.
2016. Alaska marine mammal stock assessments, 2015. U.S. Dep. Commer., NOAA Tech. Memo. NMFS-AFSC-323, 300 p. (.pdf, 12 MB). Online.
- CONN P. B., E. E. MORELAND, E. V. REGEHR, E. L. RICHMOND, M. F. CAMERON, and P. L. BOVENG.
2016 Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: Polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea. Royal Soc. Open Sci. 3:150561. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150561. Online.
- RUSSELL, D. J. F., B. T. McCLINTOCK, J. MATTHIOPOULOS, P. M. THOMPSON, D. THOMPSON, P. S. HAMMOND, E. L. JONES, M. L. MACKENZIE, S. MOSS, and B. J. MCCONNELL.
2015. Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of activity budgets in sympatric grey and harbour seals. Oikos 124(11):1462-1472. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.02138. Online.
- McCLINTOCK, B. T.
2015. Multimark: an R package for analysis of capture-recapture data consisting of multiple "noninvasive" marks. Ecol. Evol. 5:4920-4931. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1676 Online.
- CONN, P. B., D. S. JOHNSON, and P. L. BOVENG.
2015. On extrapolating past the range of observed data when making statistical predictions in ecology. PLoS ONE 10:e0141416. DOI: 10.1371/journal. pone.0141416
- Additional recent Polar Ecosystems Program publications
Posters
- Monitoring the Small and Remote Population of Harbor Seals on Otter Island in the Pribilof
By: DAVID WITHROW, LAURI JEMISON
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2016
(2016 poster, .pdf, 2.05 MB) Online.
- Location, Location, Location: Is the Largest Harbor Seal Haulout in the World Any Different From the Others?
By: JOHN K. JANSEN, JAY M. Ver HOEF, GAVIN M. BRADY, PETER L. BOVENG
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2016
(2016 poster, .pdf, 10.97 MB) Online.
- Chukchi and East Siberian Surveys (ChESS) Joint U.S.- Russian Aerial Surveys for Ice-associated Seals and Polar Bears, 2016
By: ERIN MORELAND, MICHAEL CAMERON, PAUL CONN, ERIC REGEHR, PETER BOVENG
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2016
(2016 poster, .pdf, 2.82 MB) Online.
- Harbor Seal Movement, Dive, and Haul-Out Behaviors Near Adak Island, Alaska
By: SHAWN P. DAHLE, JOSH M. LONDON, PETER L. BOVENG
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2016
(2016 poster, .pdf, 1.69 MB) Online.
- Ice-Associated Seal Surveys in the Eastern Bering Sea: Gathering Baseline Data and Utilizing a Centralized Geospatial Platform
By: ERIN L. RICHMOND, JOSH M. LONDON, PAUL B. CONN, ERIN E. MORELAND, PETER L. BOVENG
Conference: ESRI International User Conference, San Diego, CA, July 2015
(2015 poster, .pdf, 17.83 MB) Online.
- Using Aerial Photography of Harbor Seals to Compare Timing of Pupping and Weaning at Two Glacial Fjords
By: JOHN JANSEN, GAVIN BRADY, JAY Ver HOEF, PETER BOVENG
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2015
(2015 poster, .pdf, 20.46 MB) Online.
- Quantitative Assessment of Species Identification in Aerial Transect Surveys for Ice-Associated Seals
By: BRETT T. McCLINTOCK, ERIN E. MORELAND, JOSHUA M. LONDON, SHAWN P. DAHLE, GAVIN M. BRADY, ERIN L. RICHMOND, KYMBERLY M. YANO, PETER L. BOVENG
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2015
(2015 poster, .pdf, 3.6 MB) Online.
- Freshwater Seals of Iliamna Lake: Recent Population Updates
By: DAVID WITHROW, JENNIFER BURNS, PETER BOVENG, JAY Ver HOEF, GREG O’CORRY-CROWE
Conference: Alaska Marine Science Symposium, Anchorage, AK, Jan 2015
(2015 poster, .pdf, 12.58 MB) Online.
- Additional recent Polar Ecosystems Program poster presentations
