Tracey Rogers

Last updated

Tracey Rogers
Alma mater University of Sydney
Employer University of New South Wales
Known forLeopard Seals

Tracey Rogers is a marine ecologist at the University of New South Wales who studies how mammals survive changing environments.

Contents

Early life and education

As a child, Rogers was interested in deadly sea creatures. [1] Rogers became interested in leopard seals whilst working as a seal trainer at Taronga Zoo. [2] The call of Astrid, a giant female leopard seal, inspired Rogers to pursue a career in research. [3] Rogers completed her PhD, "Acoustic behaviour of the leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx : physical characteristics and functional significance", in 1997 at the University of Sydney. [4]

Research

Rogers has served as Director of the Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre. [5] She joined the University of New South Wales in 2008. Her lab at the University of New South Wales study mammals, in particular the leopard seal (an Antarctic apex predator), and their response to changing environments. [6] To do this, she studies changes in the seals' diet and habits over time. [7] She identified that if mother seals stay with their pups, father seals only use simple, crude calls, whereas if mothers are more adventurous, the language becomes more complex. [8] She also found that female leopard seals can also sing during breeding season, which is rare in the animal world. [9] [5] She believes that leopard seals might use the high-frequency (165 kHz) to echolocate food during dark winters. [5] She identified that more juvenile seals stayed together, where as older, more dominant seals have more established territories. [10]

She studies seals at the Commonwealth Bay and Prydz Bay. [11] The seals are tricky to study as they live in dangerous pack ice off coastal Antarctica, making observations difficult. [10] [12] To identify how the seals respond to a changing ecosystem, Rogers studies them using acoustic technology (hydrophones and retired military sonar buoys). [13] [11] During expeditions, the team take biopsies and collect fur from seals in the wild, which can be used as biomarkers to "capture the changes in an individual's diet, environment, climate, health, and stress levels". [14] These can be compared to seals in museum collections, collected by Douglas Mawson and Ernest Shackleton, to work out how changes in the ecosystem impact the food chain. [11] By understanding how climate change impacts species in the Antarctic, they can predict how they will cope with changes in the future. [15] She is now considered the word-expert in leopard seals. She has also studied the composition of Whale mucus with the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. [16]

She was awarded the Australian Institute of Policy and Science Young Tall Poppy Science Researcher prize in 2005, and became the Tall Poppy ambassador in 2009. [7] The children at Castle Cove Primary School were so inspired by her seal research they wanted to contribute, and raised money for a satellite tracker off the Western Antarctic Peninsula. [17] Rogers named one of the seals they observed Milo, after a school mascot, and the class tracked it in the ocean for 12 months. [17]

Rogers contributes to The Conversation, National Geographic and Nature. [18] [19] She appeared on The Life Scientific in September 2017. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earless seal</span> Family of mammals

The earless seals, phocids, or true seals are one of the three main groups of mammals within the seal lineage, Pinnipedia. All true seals are members of the family Phocidae. They are sometimes called crawling seals to distinguish them from the fur seals and sea lions of the family Otariidae. Seals live in the oceans of both hemispheres and, with the exception of the more tropical monk seals, are mostly confined to polar, subpolar, and temperate climates. The Baikal seal is the only species of exclusively freshwater seal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinstrap penguin</span> Species of penguin

The chinstrap penguin is a species of penguin that inhabits a variety of islands and shores in the Southern Pacific and the Antarctic Oceans. Its name stems from the narrow black band under its head, which makes it appear as if it were wearing a black helmet, making it easy to identify. Other common names include ringed penguin, bearded penguin, and stonecracker penguin, due to its loud, harsh call.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crabeater seal</span> Species of carnivore

The crabeater seal, also known as the krill-eater seal, is a true seal with a circumpolar distribution around the coast of Antarctica. They are medium- to large-sized, relatively slender and pale-colored, found primarily on the free-floating pack ice that extends seasonally out from the Antarctic coast, which they use as a platform for resting, mating, social aggregation and accessing their prey. They are by far the most abundant seal species in the world. While population estimates are uncertain, there are at least 7 million and possibly as many as 75 million individuals. This success of this species is due to its specialized predation on the abundant Antarctic krill of the Southern Ocean, for which it has uniquely adapted, sieve-like tooth structure. Indeed, its scientific name, translated as "lobe-toothed (lobodon) crab eater (carcinophaga)", refers specifically to the finely lobed teeth adapted to filtering their small crustacean prey. Despite its name, crabeater seals do not eat crabs. As well as being an important krill predator, the crabeater seal's pups are an important component of the diet of leopard seals. They are the only member of the genus Lobodon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leopard seal</span> Macropredatory species of Antarctic seal

The leopard seal, also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic. Its only natural predator is the orca. It feeds on a wide range of prey including cephalopods, other pinnipeds, krill, fish, and birds, particularly penguins. It is the only species in the genus Hydrurga. Its closest relatives are the Ross seal, the crabeater seal and the Weddell seal, which together are known as the tribe of Lobodontini seals. The name hydrurga means "water worker" and leptonyx is the Greek for "thin-clawed".

The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals (CCAS) is part of the Antarctic Treaty System. It was signed at the conclusion of a multilateral conference in London on February 11, 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antarctic fur seal</span> Species of carnivore

The Antarctic fur seal, is one of eight seals in the genus Arctocephalus, and one of nine fur seals in the subfamily Arctocephalinae. Despite what its name suggests, the Antarctic fur seal is mostly distributed in Subantarctic islands and its scientific name is thought to have come from the German vessel SMS Gazelle, which was the first to collect specimens of this species from Kerguelen Islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scotia Sea</span> Sea in the Southern Ocean

The Scotia Sea is a sea located at the northern edge of the Southern Ocean at its boundary with the South Atlantic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Drake Passage and on the north, east, and south by the Scotia Arc, an undersea ridge and island arc system supporting various islands. The sea sits atop the Scotia Plate. It is named after the expedition ship Scotia. Many icebergs melt there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ross seal</span> Species of mammal

The Ross seal is a true seal with a range confined entirely to the pack ice of Antarctica. It is the only species of the genus Ommatophoca. First described during the Ross expedition in 1841, it is the smallest, least abundant and least well known of the Antarctic pinnipeds. Its distinctive features include disproportionately large eyes, whence its scientific name, and complex, trilling and siren-like vocalizations. Ross seals are brachycephalic, as they have a short broad muzzle and have shorter fur than any other seal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Antarctica</span> Part of Antarctica that lies within the Eastern Hemisphere

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cabo de Hornos National Park</span>

Cabo de Hornos National Park is a protected area in southern Chile that was designated a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2005, along with Alberto de Agostini National Park. The world's southernmost national park, it is located 12 hours by boat from Puerto Williams in the Cape Horn Archipelago, which belongs to the Commune of Cabo de Hornos in the Antártica Chilena Province of Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lobodontini</span> Tribe of carnivores

The true seal tribe Lobodontini, collectively known as the Antarctic seals or lobodontin seals, consist of four species of seals in four genera: the crabeater seal, the leopard seal, the Weddell seal, and the Ross seal. All lobodontine seals have circumpolar distributions surrounding Antarctica. They include both the world's most abundant seal and the only predominantly mammal-eating seal. While the Weddell seal prefers the shore-fast ice, the other species live primarily on and around the off-shore pack ice. Thus, though they are collectively the most abundant group of seals in the world, the combination of remote range and inaccessible habitat make them among the least well studied of the world's seals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martel Inlet</span> Lighthouse

Martel Inlet is an inlet forming the northeast head of Admiralty Bay, King George Island, in the South Shetland Islands off Antarctica. The inlet and most of its constituent features were charted in December 1909 by the Fourth French Antarctic Expedition under Jean-Baptiste Charcot and named "Fiord Martel" after J.L. Martel, a French politician. The mountain ridge Ullmann Spur is located at the head of the inlet.

The Hydrurga Rocks are a group of rocks lying east of Two Hummock Island, in the Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica. They were photographed by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition, 1955–57, and were named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1960 after Hydrurga leptonyx, the leopard seal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana Bergstrom</span> Australian ecologist

Dana Michelle Bergstrom is a senior researcher at the Australian Antarctic Division most notable for her work on identifying and mitigating risks against Antarctic and Sub Antarctic Ecosystems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stocky rockcod</span> Species of ray-finned fish

The stocky rockcod, also known as the bandtail notothen, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Nototheniidae, the notothens or cod icefishes. It is found in the Southern Ocean.

Drescher Ice Camp can refer to a decommissioned permanent research station in the Drescher Inlet on the Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf as well as any subsequent mobile research stations located at the same site. The ice camp, and the inlet where it is located, are named after Alfred Wegener Institute biologist Eberhard Drescher.

References

  1. ↑ "Catalyst: Meeting Tracey Rogers - ABC TV Science". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  2. ↑ "Tracey Rogers - Introduction". lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Tracey Rogers on leopard seals and Antarctica, The Life Scientific - BBC Radio 4". BBC. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  4. ↑ Rogers, Tracey (1996). Acoustic behaviour of the leopard seal, Hydrurga leptonyx : physical characteristics and functional significance (Thesis thesis).
  5. 1 2 3 "Connect the Spots: Revealing Leopard Seal Secrets". news.nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  6. ↑ "Professor Tracey Rogers | School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences". www.bees.unsw.edu.au. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. 1 2 "Dr Tracey Rogers - AIPS". AIPS. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  8. ↑ "Life's a barrel of arfs for a working mum - National - smh.com.au". www.smh.com.au. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  9. ↑ SCIENCE, Nicky Phillips (14 May 2010). "His song seals his species' true numbers". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Leopard seals surveyed by sound". msnbc.com. 12 April 2010. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  11. 1 2 3 Jha, Alok (19 December 2013). "Antarctica live: the mysterious song of the leopard seal | Alok Jha". the Guardian. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "Antarctic Seals Counted in New Sound Census". Live Science. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  13. ↑ Tracey Rogers (8 April 2016), 3 Leopard seal singing close up Tracey Rogers , retrieved 2 April 2018
  14. ↑ Rogers, Tracey L.; Fung, Jeffery; Slip, David; Steindler, Lisa; O'Connell, Tamsin C. (1 December 2016). "Calibrating the time span of longitudinal biomarkers in vertebrate tissues when fine-scale growth records are unavailable". Ecosphere. 7 (12). doi: 10.1002/ecs2.1449 . ISSN   2150-8925.
  15. ↑ "News | The University of Sydney". sydney.edu.au. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  16. ↑ Ham, Melinda (15 August 2010). "Samples not to be sniffed at" (PDF). Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  17. 1 2 "SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES – The BIG Science Communication Summit". sciencerewired.org. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  18. ↑ Rogers, Tracey L. (5 November 2008). "Research rewards are worth the effort for multitasking mothers". Nature. 456 (7218): 29. Bibcode:2008Natur.456...29R. doi: 10.1038/456029a . PMID   18987712.
  19. ↑ "Tracey Rogers". The Conversation. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
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