Niche partitioning and individual specialisation in resources and space use of sympatric fur seals at their range margin.

Ecological theory predicts niche partitioning between high-level predators living in sympatry as a mechanism to minimise the selective pressure of competition. Accordingly, male Australian fur seals Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus and New Zealand fur seals A. forsteri that live in sympatry should exhibit partitioning in their broad niches (in habitat and trophic dimensions) in order to coexist.

Linking movement and dive data to prey distribution models: new insights in foraging behaviour and potential pitfalls of movement analyses.

Background: Animal movement data are regularly used to infer foraging behaviour and relationships to environmental characteristics, often to help identify critical habitat. To characterize foraging, movement models make a set of assumptions rooted in theory, for example, time spent foraging in an area increases with higher prey density.

Methods: We assessed the validity of these assumptions by associating horizontal movement and diving of satellite-telemetered ringed seals (Pusa hispida)-an opportunistic predator-in Hudson Bay, Canada, to modelled prey data and environmental proxies.

Environmental correlates of temporal variation in the prey species of Australian fur seals inferred from scat analysis.

Marine ecosystems in southeastern Australia are responding rapidly to climate change. We monitored the diet of the Australian fur seal (), a key marine predator, over 17 years (1998-2014) to examine temporal changes. Frequency of occurrence (FO) of prey was used as a proxy for ecosystem change.

Variability in prey field structure drives inter-annual differences in prey encounter by a marine predator, the little penguin.

Understanding how marine predators encounter prey across patchy landscapes remains challenging due to difficulties in measuring the three-dimensional structure of pelagic prey fields at scales relevant to animal movement. We measured at-sea behaviour of a central-place forager, the little penguin (), over 5 years (2015-2019) using GPS and dive loggers. We made contemporaneous measurements of the prey field within the penguins' foraging range via boat-based acoustic surveys.