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Published online on June 26, 2006, 10.1073/pnas.0604002103
PNAS | July 5, 2006 | vol. 103 | no. 27 | 10213-10217


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PHYSICAL SCIENCES / BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES / POPULATION BIOLOGY
Holocene elephant seal distribution implies warmer-than-present climate in the Ross Sea

B. L. Hall*,{dagger},{ddagger}, A. R. Hoelzel§, C. Baroni, G. H. Denton*,{dagger},||, B. J. Le Boeuf**, B. Overturf*, and A. L. Töpf§

*Climate Change Institute and {dagger}Department of Earth Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469; §School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3HP, United Kingdom; Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse, Università di Pisa and Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 56126 Pisa, Italy; and **Institute of Marine Studies and Department of Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Contributed by G. H. Denton, May 15, 2006

We show that southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) colonies existed proximate to the Ross Ice Shelf during the Holocene, well south of their core sub-Antarctic breeding and molting grounds. We propose that this was due to warming (including a previously unrecognized period from {approx}1,100 to 2,300 14C yr B.P.) that decreased coastal sea ice and allowed penetration of warmer-than-present climate conditions into the Ross Embayment. If, as proposed in the literature, the ice shelf survived this period, it would have been exposed to environments substantially warmer than present.

Antarctica | southern elephant seals

Author contributions: B.L.H., A.R.H., C.B., and G.H.D. designed research; B.L.H., A.R.H., C.B., B.O., and A.L.T. performed research; B.L.H., A.R.H., C.B., G.H.D., B.J.L.B., and A.L.T. analyzed data; and B.L.H., A.R.H., C.B., G.H.D., B.J.L.B., and B.O. wrote the paper.

Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.

{ddagger}To whom correspondence may be addressed at: University of Maine, 303 Bryand, Orono, ME 04469. E-mail: brendah{at}maine.edu

||To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: debbies{at}maine.edu

© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA


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