Modeling to aid management of marine top predators in a changing climate

Marine top predators can include species that occupy a high trophic level (e.g., predatory sharks), have few predators (e.g., marine turtles), or can exert top-down control on food webs due to their large energetic demands (e.g., whales). While many species in the open ocean are widely distributed (e.g., Read et al. 2013; Reygondeau et al. 2012), the higher trophic levels are noteworthy as they are also wide-ranging (e.g., tuna (Itoh et al. 2003; Block et al. 2011; Hobday et al. 2015), seabirds (Shaffer et al. 2006), turtles (Shillinger et al. 2008; Briscoe et al. 2016)). These wide-ranging species can serve as ecological linkages within and across ocean basins, through both ontogenetic (larvae to adult) and seasonal migrations (Boustany et al. 2010; Hobday et al. 2015; Briscoe et al. 2016). Many wide-ranging marine animals show site fidelity at particular times during their lives or have relatively small and well-defined areas of critical habitat, which facilitates both exploitation (e.g., Hobday et al. 2015) and protection (e.g., Ban et al. 2014). This fidelity can be related to the temporal and spatial predictability of their physical habitats, as evidenced by predictable seasonal aggregations of high-trophic fishes, birds, turtles, and mammals (Scales et al. 2014), which is aided by sensory capabilities that permit them to locate specific physical and biological features.