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Windscape and tortuosity shape the flight costs of northern gannets
Citation
Amelineau, F and Peron, C and Lescroel, A and Authier, M and Provost, P and Gremillet, D, Windscape and tortuosity shape the flight costs of northern gannets, Journal of Experimental Biology, 217, (6) pp. 876-885. ISSN 0022-0949 (2014) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2014 The Authors-distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence (the terms of which are set out at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Abstract
When animals move across a landscape, they alternate between
active searching phases in areas with high prey density and
commuting phases towards and in-between profitable feeding
patches. Such active searching movements are more sinuous than
travelling movements, and supposedly more costly in energy. Here
we provide an empirical validation of this long-lasting assumption. To
this end, we evaluated simultaneously energy expenditure and
trajectory in northern gannets (Morus bassanus) using GPS loggers,
dive recorders and three-dimensional accelerometers. Three
behavioural states were determined from GPS data: foraging, when
birds actively searched for prey (high tortuosity, medium speed);
travelling, when birds were commuting (straight trajectory, high
speed); and resting (straight trajectory, low speed). Overall dynamic
body acceleration, calculated from acceleration data, was used as a
proxy for energy expenditure during flight. The impact of windscape
characteristics (wind force and direction) upon flight costs was also
tested. Energy expenditure of northern gannets was higher during
sinuous foraging flight than during more rectilinear travelling flight,
demonstrating that turns are indeed costly. Yet wind force and
direction also strongly shaped flight energy expenditure; within any
behavioural state it was less costly to fly with the wind than against
it, and less costly to fly with strong winds. Despite the major flight
costs of wind action, birds did not fully optimize their flight track
relative to wind direction, probably because of prey distributions
relative to the coastline and wind predictability. Our study illustrates
how both tortuosity and windscape shape the foraging costs of
marine predators such as northern gannets.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | energetics, accelerometry, state-space model, foraging, seabird, wind |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Ecology |
| Research Field: | Behavioural ecology |
| Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
| Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
| Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences |
| UTAS Author: | Peron, C (Dr Clara Peron) |
| ID Code: | 92453 |
| Year Published: | 2014 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 50 |
| Deposited By: | Sustainable Marine Research Collaboration |
| Deposited On: | 2014-06-18 |
| Last Modified: | 2014-07-15 |
| Downloads: | 314 View Download Statistics |
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