MEET THE SCIENTIST
Sarah Kienle
Assistant professor of biology at Baylor University, Texas, on the latest leopard seal research
SARAH KIENLE FELL IN LOVE WITH BIOLOGY AS an undergraduate and started working on the ecology and physiology of marine mammals during her PhD. “I run a lab studying top predators because changes in their populations have cascading consequences for entire ecosystems,” says the assistant professor of biology at Baylor University.
“In this era of widespread, rapid environmental change, it is so important to understand the different adaptations that animals have that allow them to survive,” says Sarah. “We know so little about marine mammals compared to terrestrial mammal predators.” Her most recent study focused on the leopard seal because they are one of the least studied predators on Earth but are important in the Southern Ocean ecosystem.
“The most exciting finding to me was that female leopard seals are 1.5 times larger than male leopard seals,” she says. “We don’t know why – yet. Large female leopard seals seem to be better at defending territories, stealing prey and eating energy-rich prey compared to smaller females and males.
“We also found that some females spend up to two weeks hauled out on ice and think this is when they are giving birth and nursing,” says the biologist. “Leopard seals are primarily short shallow divers, but we also recorded the longest and deepest dive for any leopard seal – 25 minutes to 1,256m.
“Leopard seals are challenging to work with because they are solitary animals that rarely haul out in groups, so finding multiple animals is tricky,” explains Sarah. Before an individual is measured and weighed, it must be sedated to reduce stress to the animal. Special permits (NMFS 19439, ACA 2018-016 and NSF 1644256) allowed Sarah and her colleagues to conduct their research.
“We don’t have enough information to really understand how leopard seals are coping with environmental change,” she says. “It’s encouraging, though, to see so much variability among individuals because species with more variability are better able to adapt to climate change.”
