Email updates   Open Access Highly Accessed Research article
Ocean climate and seal condition  Burney J Le Boeuf1* and Daniel
E Crocker2    • * Corresponding author: Burney J Le Boeuf    • †
Equal contributors  Author Affiliations  1 Institute of Marine
Sciences and Department of Biology, University of California,
Santa Cruz, California, 95064, USA  2 Department of Biology,
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California, 94982, USA
For all author emails, please log on.  BMC Biology 2005, 3:9 
doi:10.1186/1741-7007-3-9   Received:7 November 2004 Accepted:28
March 2005 Published:28 March 2005  © 2005 Le Boeuf and Crocker;
licensee BioMed Central Ltd.     The condition of many marine
mammals varies with fluctuations in productivity and food supply
in the ocean basin where they forage. Prey is impacted by
physical environmental variables such as cyclic warming trends.
The weaning weight of northern elephant seal pups, Mirounga
angustirostris, being closely linked to maternal condition,
indirectly reflects pr