Seasonal distribution of telemetry data.

<p>Normalized number of received locations per month from SRDLs deployed on grey seals in the western (black) and eastern (grey) North Atlantic.</p

Dive depths of grey seals.

<p>Binned dive depths of grey seals based on 223,157 dives (grey bars) and available water depths at 34,140 locations (black line) from the ETOPO1 1 arc-minute global relief model.</p

Grey seal telemetry locations.

<p>34,140 grey seal locations (red dots) as recorded by 81 SRDLs between May 2003 and May 2007 with water depths greater than 0 m in the western (A) and eastern (B) North Atlantic. Isobaths are 200 m, 500 m and 1000 m and land is shaded grey. Some important topographic features are marked: Newfoundland (NF), Nova Scotia (NS) and Grand Banks (GB).</p

Shelf areas today and during the LGM.

<p>Available continental shelf area (<500 m) during the LGM (blue) based on a sea level drop of 123 m and today (red) per degree latitude. The left panel shows the Atlantic Ocean. The western shelf areas are on the left side of the zero line, while the eastern shelf areas are on the right side, excluding the Mediterranean Sea, which is shown in black (today) and cyan (LGM). The middle panel shows the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean is shown in the right panel in a similar fashion. The percentile area during the LGM when compared to today for each western and eastern side of the ocean basins are shown.</p

Grey and hooded seal telemetry locations.

<p>Grey seal locations (orange dots; subset of <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0053000#pone-0053000-g002" target="_blank">figure 2</a>) and locations from instruments deployed on Hooded seals (green) in the Western North Atlantic showing the division of the shelf habitat between the two species. Isobaths are 150 m and 500 m and land is shaded grey. Some important topographic features are marked: Newfoundland (NF), Nova Scotia (NS) and Grand Banks (GB).</p

Environmental conditions today and during the LGM.

<p><i>Top row</i>: Sea Surface Temperature (SST) for February (A) and August (B) from the gridded SST dataset and corresponding sea ice extend (white) for today. <i>Bottom row</i>: SST during the LGM based on GLAMAP data for February (C) and August (D). Land is grey and is based on the 5-minute Terrainbase elevation data, lifted by 123 m for the LGM dataset. Ice sheet and sea ice extent are shaded white.</p

Grey seal range during LGM.

<p>Predicted grey seal habitat during LGM with drop in sea level of 123 m based solely on water depth and annual reconstructed sea surface temperature data. <i>Top</i>: For this estimate, grey seals inhabit a depth range between 0 m and 127.5 m and a SST range of 5.4°C to 11.7°C (blue) or 2.7°C to 12.6°C (blue and red). <i>Bottom</i>: For this estimate, grey seals inhabit a depth range between 0 m and 500 m and a SST range of 2.7°C to 12.6°C (red). Land is shaded dark grey and summer ice cover is light grey. Water depth contour is omitted for better clarity of the coloured areas.</p

Frequency distributions.

<p>a) Frequency distribution of bottom depth across all seals (n  =  3,269) based on the number of dive locations obtained from the SRDL tags. b) Frequency distribution of maximum dive depth across all seals (n  =  3,269) based on number of dive locations obtained from the SRDL tags.</p

Density plot of percentage of seals hauled out within the specific hour.

<p>Densities for males (top) and females (bottom) of less than 20% are not shown. Background colours show the sun angle for an observer at latitude of 74.5°S with contour lines for astronomical twilight (-12°), nautical twilight (-8°), civil twilight (-6°) and sun rise/set (-0.8°). Night time (sun angle below -8°) is grey, while day time (sun angle above -8°) is yellow.</p

Map over the study area.

<p>Moulting area is located in southeast Greenland and breeding areas in Davis Strait (DS), off Labrador and Newfoundland (Front) and in the Gulf og St. Lawrence (Gulf). Bathymetry of the study area is presented as backdrop in grey scale. Dashed white line is the 1,000 meter contour.</p