Current Research

My current research focuses the population demography of Weddell seals in Antarctica.

The Weddell seal population in Erebus Bay has been studied extensively since 1979 as part of a long-term capture - mark - recapture project. Over 29,000 seals have been tagged in the history of the project with the database boasting more than over 300,000 records.

Fieldwork takes place from October to December and is based out of McMurdo Station. The goal of each field season is to tag every pup that is born. We also make sure adults have readable tags. We can then use the number of pups born in a single year as a metric for how the population is doing.

Right now, my research is focused on how the population has changed in the last forty years and what's contributing to those shifts. I'm thinking a lot about how the environment changing might impact this long-lived species and how we can use publicly available data to do some cool analyses. Future analyses will look at the composition of the population, specifically thinking about how seals that weren't born in the population are contributing to the population. Overall, I'm interested in understanding the past and present to then being able to project the future.

I want to show young women and non-binary children what it can look like to work in STEM. On campus, I'm active in the fight for graduate students to be paid living wages. I care deeply about equity and inclusion, especially in the ecology field, and want to learn how I can be better at making sure that everyone who wants to can work in wildlife research.

PUBLICATIONS

Anderson ME, Levinson PM, Rotella JJ. Leucistic Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) observations in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. Antarctic Science. Published online 2025:1-5. doi:10.1017/S095410202500001X

Levinson PM, Rotella JJ. Immigration and emigration in the isolated White Island Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) population. Antarctic Science. 2025;37(1):69-72. doi:10.1017/S0954102024000476

Anderson, A.K., P.M. Levinson, A. Conklin, and J.J. Rotella. 2024. Observations of Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) supernumerary nipples. Polar Biology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-024-03228-x

Loggers, E., Levinson, P., Gedlinkse, L., Krieger, E., & Heili, N. (10 August 2023). A framework for financial equity among graduate students in an ecology department.

Poster Presented at Ecology Society of America. Portland, Oregon, USA.

Levinson, P., Schmidt, A., Morandini, V., Elrod, M., Jongsomjit, D., & Ballard, G. (2021). Breeding behaviour of colour- aberrant Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) at Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica. Antarctic Science, 33(4), 335-343. doi:10.1017/S0954102021000158