Figure 5.

Progesterone Z-scores by pregnancy stage (which considers the reproductive status and season of harvest) for female bearded and ringed seal claws. Because it cannot be determined whether unimplanted seals have a blastocyst, are pseudopregnant, ovulating, or non-pregnant they were excluded from this analysis (n = 2 which were noted as unimplanted in the summer). The horizontal line within each box indicates the median, the box encompasses 25–75% of the data and the vertical lines (whiskers) include 5–95% of the data. Progesterone Z-scores were significantly different by reproductive stage (ANOVA, F = 6.5, P = 0.002). Non-pregnant seals (n = 6, a) have significantly lower progesterone Z-scores than seals in late pregnancy (n = 13, c; Tukey multiple comparison of means, P = 0.002). Seals in mid-pregnancy (n = 9), implanted seals harvested in fall or winter, were not significantly different from either non-pregnant or late-pregnancy seals (Tukey multiple comparison of means, P = 0.11, P = 0.26, respectively).