Model suitable and you can diagnostics

We fit our Bayesian state-space model, consisting of both movement and observation process components, using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. We assigned uninformative priors whenever there were no a priori expectations about the relationships of the model parameters and the movement behavior states (see Appendix S1). _letter,t) within each iteration of the MCMC algorithm (see Appendix S2). We initialized six chains from random starting values drawn from the prior distributions. After initial pilot tuning and burn-in, we ran the chains until the univariate Gelman–Rubin potential scale reduction factor (PSRF) for monitored parameters was <1.2 and effective sample sizes exceeded 4000. This required about 6 million iterations per chain, where 1 million iterations for each parallel chain required about 100 h using six cores of a 3.7-GHz processor. Data and code can be found in Data S1.

Performance

According to posterior modes to own state tasks, we receive these bearded seals spent 70% of the implementation attacks in the benthic foraging condition (B). It hauled on frost (condition I) and you may rested from the sea (condition S) inside around equal dimensions, however, there’s a definite regular part inside activity finances certainly one of the fresh new hauled from frost (I), benthic foraging (B), and you may transit (T) says one coincided toward june haven and you may wintertime progress regarding sea ice throughout the Cold (Table 2). Most of the seals displayed intensive benthic foraging over the continental cupboards away from the fresh Chukchi otherwise Beaufort oceans since the water ice receded northward inside the summer. We discover hardly any evidence of these types of frost-relevant seals hauling on land, although close to the coastline inside mainly frost-totally free period during the summer. Amazingly, a grownup male temporarily moved northern of your own Beaufort seaside shelf in the later and you may was predicted to possess hauled from the newest receding ocean ice boundary anywhere between bouts out of middle-liquids foraging from the greater waters of Canada Basin (Fig. 2). You can expect an in depth cartoon out of forecast actions and you may condition tasks for everyone seals prior to bathymetry and sea ice safeguards in Appendix S3.

• There were seasonal differences in craft finances ranging from “summer” (regarding tagging when you look at the later June and you will very early July to help you 30 September), “autumn” (step one Oct so you can 29 December), and “winter” (1 January up to level loss between February and you will April) you to coincided towards the south improve away from winter water ice for the the brand new Cold. Pastime budget summaries had been determined in accordance with the posterior means of big date spent inside for every single county that have all the way down (LCI) and you will higher (UCI) legitimate periods based on 95% higher posterior density. Private close craft budgets are part of Appendix S4.

As expected, the resting states (I, S, and L) exhibited shorter step lengths, no directional persistence, and lower proportions of each time step diving >4 m below the surface based on state-specific parameter estimates (Fig. 3; see Appendix S4 for posterior sumeters). Both the mid-water foraging (M) and transit (T) states exhibited longer step lengths, lower proportions of dry time, and higher proportions of diving >4 m below the surface. Only the transit state exhibited strong directional persistence, but state M exhibited moderate directional persistence for some individuals (Fig. 3). The benthic foraging (B) state generally exhibited moderate step lengths, no directional persistence, lower proportions of dry time, higher proportions of diving >4 m below the surface, and considerably higher benthic dive counts (posterior median for ?_B = 41.4; 95% highest posterior density interval: 41.2–41.7). The resting (?_I = ?_S = ?_L = 9.7; 95% HPDI: 9.4–10.0) and transit (?_T = 15.0; 95% HPDI: 14.5–15.5) states exhibited moderate benthic dive counts, best hookup bar Squamish while the mid-water foraging state generally had the lowest benthic dive counts (?_M = 1.5; 95% HPDI: 1.3–1.7; Fig. 3). The moderate benthic dive counts for the resting and transit states could be attributable to mid-interval state switches, but there certainly could have been opportunistic benthic foraging during transit. There also could have been high-speed, directionally persistent benthic dives while transiting in relatively shallow shelf waters.