Mobile consumers often match their movements to short-term resource pulses. In the Arctic, seasonal ice breakup facilitates an ephemeral productivity pulse exploited by marine consumers. The migration of anadromous Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) to marine waters occurs around the beginning of ice breakup, but the precise timing of movement is equivocal and current evidence is conflicting. To investigate the migratory timing of Arctic char, 34 individuals were tagged with acoustic telemetry transmitters within Tremblay Sound, Nunavut, Canada in two successive years. All tagged fish entered the marine environment before the coastal ice-off date (mean ± SE: 7.56 ± 0.56 days). Further movement metrics revealed that char utilized much of the sound before the ice-off date, with only slightly higher mean home ranges (0.3 km² larger) and residency indices (by ~ 0.05) during the period following the ice-off date than prior. Such entry and use of marine waters prior to ice breakup may impart energetic benefits to early migrants, maximizing exploitation of the short, anticipated pulse of productivity. The current study provides a unique example of resource tracking that could confer heightened fitness to a marine consumer in the rapidly warming high Arctic.

移动消费者经常将他们的动作与短期资源脉动相匹配。在北极，季节性的冰块破裂促进了海洋消费者利用短暂的生产力。异常北极红点鲑（Salvelinus alpinus的迁移到冰层破裂开始时就到达海洋水域，但运动的确切时间是模棱两可的，目前的证据相互矛盾。为了调查北极红点鲑的迁徙时间，连续两年在加拿大努纳武特州的特兰布莱声音（Tremblay Sound）内用声学遥测发射器对34个人进行了标记。所有带标签的鱼在沿海冰冻期之前进入海洋环境（平均值±SE：7.56±0.56天）。进一步的运动指标显示，炭黑在冰点日期之前利用了大部分声音，但平均回程范围（0.3 km ²结束日期之后的时期内，居住指数和居住指数（约〜0.05）要比以前大。在破冰之前，这种进入和使用海水可能会给早期移民带来积极的好处，从而最大限度地利用了预期的短期生产力。当前的研究提供了一个独特的资源跟踪示例，它可以使北极迅速变暖的海洋消费者更加适应海洋环境。