Life History Transmitters (LHX) in Steller sea lions: assessing the effects of health status, foraging ability, and environmental variability on juvenile survival and population trends.

The Hypotheses the LHX Project will test:

Null-hypotheses:

1. Juvenile survival does not differ from predicted value for constant population levels.
   
   
2. Juvenile mortality is uniformly distributed across the year.
   
   
3. Dive effort does not differ between deceased animals and survivors.
   
   
4. Juvenile dive effort is uniformly distributed across the year.
   
   
5. Seasonal changes in dive effort - if observed (see Ho 4) - do not differ between animals that die at an early age, and those that survive longer.
   
   
6. The detailed dive behavior does not differ between survivors and behavior recorded prior to death for deceased animals.
   
   
7. Juvenile survival is not related to body mass / body condition at time of implantation.
   
   
8. Juvenile survival is not related to diving propensity near weaning.
   
   
9. Juvenile survival is not related to health & condition indicators at time of LHX implantation.
   
   
10. Juvenile survival is not related to levels of pollutants measured at time of LHX implantation.
    
    
11. Juvenile survival is not related to the status of the immune system at time of LHX implantation.

© M. Horning 1999.

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