Kristin Laidre is currently a research scientist at the Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Lab, University of Washington. She is partially supported by the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources in Nuuk, Greenland. Her primary research interests lie in spatial modeling of movement and spatially-explicit foraging ecology of top marine predators. She is interested in how environmental features and habitat variables manifest themselves as constraints on movement and behavior, and how these constraints differentially impact demographics of sub-populations or metapopulations of marine species. Her research is focused on exploring these relationships using satellite and archival telemetry, in combination with remotely-sensed satellite data and quantitative spatial models in a Geographic Information System (GIS). Her research also links spatial environmental fluctuation to bioenergetic models and food webs in the marine ecosystem. Much of her research is focused in the high Arctic, where both short food chains and very limited and specific production periods strongly shape the behavior of top predators.
Kristin Laidre
In The News
Iced In: Conservation Magazine, 2011-12-04
Recent research by Kristin Laidre and Harry Stern on the impacts of climate change on Arctic narwhals is published in Polar Biology. See the article in Conservation Magazine.
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Selected Projects
Climate Change, Sea Ice Loss, and Polar Bears in Greenland
This project aims to understand and quantify the effects of sea ice loss on polar bears in East and West Greenland (Baffin Bay). Longitudinal (cross-time) comparisons of movement behavior and habitat selection will be driven by an analysis of a multi-decadal satellite telemetry dataset on polar bear movements in Baffin Bay and East Greenland, beginning when sea ice concentration and break up date started to decline (1991-1997) and encompassing present day conditions (2007-2013).
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Behavioral Ecology of Narwhals in a Changing Arctic
The Arctic is currently undergoing rapid and extraordinary large-scale changes related to natural resource development, marine shipping, transportation, infrastructure, and sea ice loss, and as a consequence there will be an imminent and uniform increase in anthropogenic sound. Narwhals are an important representative species for understanding both increasing noise in the Arctic and loss of sea ice, and the joint effects of these impacts on their behavior and ecology.
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Selected Publications
Laidre, K., Heide-Jorgensen, H. Stern, and P. Richard, 2012, Unusual narwahl sea ice entrapments and delayed autumn freeze-up trends, Polar Biology, 35, 149-154, doi: 10.007/s00300-001-1036-8
Laidre K.L. and M.P. Heide-Jørgensen, “Life in the lead: Extreme densities of narwhals in the offshore pack ice”, Marine Ecology Progress Series. In Press, 2011
Heide-Jørgensen, M.P., K.L. Laidre, D. Borchers, T.A. Marques, H. Stern, and M. Simon, 2010, The effect of sea-ice loss on beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in West Greenland’, Polar Research, doi:10.1111/j.1751-8369.2009.00142.x, 2010.
Heide-Jørgensen M. P., K. L. Laidre, M.L. Burt, D.L. Borchers, T. A. Marques, R. G. Hansen, M. Rasmussen and S. Fossette, “Abundance of narwhals (Monodon monoceros L.) on the hunting grounds in Greenland”, Journal of Mammalogy 91(5):1135–1151, 2010
Laidre, K. L., M. P. Heide-Jørgensen, M. L. Logsdon, L. Delwiche, T. G. Nielsen, “A whale of an opportunity: Examining the vertical structure of high Arctic waters using space-based ocean observations and instrumented marine predators”, Marine Biology Research 6:519-529, 2010.
Laidre, K. L., M. P. Heide-Jørgensen, P. Heagerty, A. Cossio, B. Bergstrom, and M. Simon, “Spatial associations between large baleen whales and their prey in West Greenland”, Marine Ecology Progress Series 402:269-284, 2010.
Laidre, K. L., M. P. Heide-Jørgensen, W. Ermold, and M. Steele, “Narwhals document continued warming of Baffin Bay”, Journal of Geophysical Research 115: C10049, doi:10.1029/2009JC005820, 2010.
Heide-Jørgensen, M.P., K. L. Laidre, Ø. Wiig, L. Postma, L. Dueck, L. Bachmann, “Large scale sexual segregation of bowhead whales”, Endangered Species Research 13:73-78, 2010.
Laidre, K.L., P. Heagerty, M.P. Heide-Jørgensen, L. Witting, and M. Simon,’ Sexual segregation of common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) and sex ratio of catches in Greenland’, ICES J. Mar. Sci, 66, 2253-2266, 2009.
Gurarie, E., R. Andrews, and K.L. Laidre,’ A novel method for identifying behavioral changes in animal movement data’, Ecol. Lett., 12, 395-408, 2009.
Laidre, K.L., I. Stirling, L. Lowry, Ø. Wiig, M. P. Heide-Jørgensen, and S. Ferguson,’ Quantifying the sensitivity of arctic marine mammals to climate-induced habitat change’, Ecological Applications, 18(2):S97-S125, 2007.
Laidre, K. L., M. P Heide-Jørgensen, J. Nyland, A. Mosbech, and D. Boertmann, “Latitudinal gradients in sea ice and primary production determine Arctic seabird colony size in Greenland”, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 275: 2695–2702 doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.0874, 2008.