Activity budgets of southern elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, during the breeding season
Elephant seals, Mirounga leonina, of both sexes undergo a prolonged fast during the breeding season when they rely on their reserves of blubber for energy. Activity patterns were observed in order to investigate the partitioning of these limited resources and in particular the allocation of time to different activities and the effect of individual status, season, time of day and other environmental variables. The results suggest that variations in activity patterns were related to the costs and benefits involved.