Dear colleagues,

My co-authors and I are pleased to share our new open-access publication
looking at northern fur seal habitat suitability in the eastern Bering Sea
and overlap with the commercial walleye pollock fishery. The article is
freely available in Movement Ecology
<https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40462-025-00545-6?utm_source=rct_congratemailt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oa_20250414&utm_content=10.1186/s40462-025-00545-6>
 (10.1186/s40462-025-00545-6). The abstract is pasted below.

Best wishes,

Liz McHuron

*Article info: *E.A. McHuron, E.L. Hazen,. N.A. Pelland, K.K. Kearney, W.
Cheng, A.J. Hermann, R.R. Ream, J.T, Sterling. 2025. Current and future
habitat suitability of northern fur seals and overlap with the commercial
walleye pollock fishery in the eastern Bering Sea. Movement Ecology

*Abstract: *Understanding the abiotic and biotic drivers of species
distribution is critical for climate-informed ecosystem management. We
aimed to understand habitat selection of northern fur seals in the eastern
Bering Sea, a declining population that is also a key predator of walleye
pollock, the target species for the largest U.S. commercial fishery. We
developed species distribution models using random forest models by
combining satellite telemetry data from lactating female fur seals tagged
at different rookery complexes on the Pribilof Islands in the eastern
Bering Sea with regional ocean model simulations. We explored how data
aggregation at two spatial scales (Pribilof-wide and complex-specific)
impacted model performance and predicted distributions. Spatial predictions
under hindcasted (1992 - 2018) and projected (2050 - 2059) physical and
biological conditions were used to identify areas of core habitat, overlap
with commercial fishery catches, and potential changes in future habitat
suitability. The most important environmental predictor variables across all
 models were bathymetry, bottom temperature, and surface temperature. The
Pribilof-wide model both under- and overrepresented the importance of
specific areas, while complex-specific models exhibited considerable
variability in transferability performance. The majority of core habitat
occurred on the continental shelf in areas that overlapped with commercial
catches of walleye pollock during the “B” season (June - October),
with an average
of 76% of the total percentage of the catch occurring in core fur seal
habitat within the foraging range of lactating females. Projections revealed
 that considerable changes in fur seal habitat suitability may occur in the
coming decades, with complex-specific variation in the magnitude and
direction of changes. Our results illustrate the need to sample multiple
sites whenever possible and consider spatial scale when extrapolating species
distribution model output for central-place foragers, even when terrestrial
sites are <10 km apart. The high overlap between suitable fur seal habitat
and commercial fishery catches of pollock, coupled with projected changes
in habitat suitability, underscore the need for targeted studies
investigating fisheries impacts on this declining population.

Elizabeth McHuron, PhD
Research Scientist, UW CICOES
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