My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the publication of "Contemporary diets of walruses in Bristol Bay, Alaska suggest temporal variability in benthic community structure."  Available at PeerJ:  https://peerj.com/articles/8735/ 

ABSTRACT

Methods. We analyzed scat and gastrointestinal tract samples from these animals using
quantitative polymerase chain reaction to amplify prey DNA, which allowed for diet
estimates based on frequencies of prey item occurrence and on the relative importance
of dietary items as determined from DNA threshold cycle scores.

Results. Diets were highly diverse at all locations, but with some variation in com-
position that may be related to the time of year that samples were collected (summer
vs. autumn), or to spatial variability in the distribution of prey. Overall, polychaetes
and tunicates had the highest frequencies of occurrence and relative abundances in
2014-15, but a major change in diet appears to have occurred by 2017-18. While some
sample sizes were small, diets in these later years contrasted sharply, with a greater
prevalence of sea cucumbers and mollusks, and reduced importance of decapods and
fishes compared to the earlier years. Prey identified in scat samples from one collection
site also contrasted sharply with those reported from the same location in 1981. The
apparent temporal shifts in walrus prey may represent a changing benthic ecosystem