Plan of work
TENTATIVE TITLES:
This is just an idea. Each time you will think of a goodn title, write it down, and we will decide in the end...
Diet of a polar bear in Svalbard: evidence for climate change adaptation?
Observations on polar bear diet in Svalbard
INTRODUCTION
You need to write down about 3-4 paragraphs:
- In the first one, we need to set the problem. Mention that polar bears are one of the species that are supposed to be most affected by global warming (needs to be justified with References). One of the main problems is the loss of ice cover, which makes them impossible to hunt for seals, their main food item. There is a lot of discussion about that polar bears will adapt or not. One of the ways they will possibly have to adapt is change their food items and consume other food items than seals. For each statement, we need to support with references
- Second paragraph can be a review of the food diets of polar bear. First mention their geographical range and bear numbers. Include not only Svalbard, but also Canada. Try to summarise the diet of all studies, main food items, how diet changes… Mention that there are not so many studies about polar bear diet in true, so all information and observations, even if small like ours, are of relevance (note. Most of them are done by helicopter and so on, but little direct info from the field).
- Third one: Describing our observation. During summer 2004, we observed a polar bear in Hornsund (Svalbard), which was frequenting the area of Gnalodden. The bear was regularly resting in the same area, which was covered in bear hairs and covered by scats, probably from spring-summer. It was protected from the wind and exposed to the sun. the bear was observed on XX sleeping and on xx, feeding on the grass under the bird colony.
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- Last paragraph: goal of the study: to describe the diet of the observed polar bear in the snow-free period, and discuss whether the consumption of food items other than seal may be a way of adapting to climate warming
Here we need to add that we are aware of the fact that we have only observations of ONE indovidual, but even though, they are so surprising, that we are convinced that they are interesting enough
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MATERIALS AND METHODS
- Study area (you can use some info from other scientific articles from Svalbard)
- Scat collection (period
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- , how many, that they were dried till further analysis)
- Scat analysis: describe frequency of occurrence and % of volume. We cannot estimate biomass, because there are not coefficients of digestibility for polar bears. But those two parameters are enough.
- We are not going to do real statistic analysis of the data
RESULTS
- List of food items found. We need to present in a Table which will include the Frequency of occurrence and the % volume. Describe little the results obtained.
DISCUSSION
- mention the important role of, for example, bird colonies in supporting polar bear adaptation (in case they consume a lot). Or the importance of vegetation, which is surprising, not only in amount, but also in quality (vitamins).
- If possible, we can do a comparison of our data with the data obtained from other studies. We need to investigate this. For example, to check the % of seals in polar bear diet in other studies in relation to the year. Maybe our study is the one with the lowest % of seals
- Mention that we have observations from only one individual, and that results are not very conclusive. But it shows the need to conduct more diet studies (although in last years they have become less fashionable) on polar bears as this is one of the ways to show if they can consume other food items and thus adapt to shortage of seals in future.
REFERENCES
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