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Environmental drivers of oceanic foraging site fidelity in central place foragers

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-20, 20:00 authored by Dahlia FooDahlia Foo, Mark HindellMark Hindell, McMahon, C, Goldsworthy, S, Bailleul, F

Finding food is crucial to the survival and reproductive success of individuals. Fidelity to previous profitable foraging sites may bring benefits to individuals as they can allocate more time to foraging rather than searching for prey. We studied how environmental conditions influence when lactating long-nosed fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) adopt a risky (low fidelity) or conservative (high fidelity) foraging strategy at two intra-annual temporal scales when foraging in a highly variable oceanic environment. Core foraging areas (CFAs; n = 534; 30 × 30 km cells) of consecutive foraging trips were obtained from geolocation tracks of 12 females from summer to winter in 2016 (n = 5) and 2017 (n = 7). We used the spatial variability (standard deviation) of CFAs between or among oceanic foraging trips as a proxy for individual foraging site fidelity (IFSF). Over the entire oceanic foraging period (n = 12), IFSF in the latitudinal axis increased with stronger sea-surface temperature gradient (SSTgrad), but decreased with greater SSTgrad and sea-surface height gradient variability. Over a period of two consecutive oceanic foraging trips (n = 66), IFSF decreased with greater SSTgrad variability in the earlier foraging trip. LNFS show evidence that they use IFSF as a strategy to potentially optimise food acquisition, and that this behaviour is influenced by mesoscale oceanographic parameters.

Funding

Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment

History

Publication title

Marine Biology

Volume

167

Issue

6

Article number

76

Number

76

Pagination

1-13

ISSN

0025-3162

Department/School

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Place of publication

175 Fifth Ave, New York, USA, Ny, 10010

Rights statement

Copyright 2020 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Assessment and management of coastal and estuarine ecosystems; Antarctic and Southern Ocean ice dynamics

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