From high-resolution to low-resolution dive datasets: a new index to quantify the foraging effort of marine predators

Animal Biotelemetry

Karine Heerah³  Mark Hindell⁴  Christophe Guinet¹  Jean-Benoît Charrassin² 

[1] Centre d’Etude Biologique de Chizé (CEBC), CNRS UPR 1934, Villiers-en-Bois, 79360, France

[2] Sorbonne Universités (UPMC, Université Paris 06)-CNRS-IRD-MNHN, LOCEAN Laboratory, 4 Place Jussieu, Paris, 75005, France

[3] Marine Predator Unit, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 129, Hobart 7001, TAS, Australia

[4] Antarctic Climate and Ecosystem Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, TAS, Australia

关键词: Accelerometers;    Method;    Marine ecology;    Dive profile;    Foraging behaviour;    Satellite-linked time depth recorders;    Argos tags;    Pinnipeds;   

Others  :  1233171
DOI  :  10.1186/s40317-015-0074-3

 received in 2014-10-20, accepted in 2015-09-11,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

In the last decade, thousands of satellite-relayed data loggers (SRDLs) have been deployed, providing large datasets on marine predator movement patterns at sea and their diving behaviour. However, the latter is in a highly summarised, low-resolution form, from which it is difficult to make the sorts of important behavioural inferences that are possible from higher-resolution datasets (such as detection of likely foraging events). The main objective of this study was to develop a simple, but accurate tool to detect and quantify within-dive foraging periods in low-resolution dives.

Method

Two southern elephant seals were fitted with a head-mounted time depth recorder (TDR) (recording depth at 1 Hz) and an accelerometer (recording 3 axes of acceleration at 16 Hz) from which prey capture attempts were estimated (PrCA), and a Weddell seal was also fitted with a TDR (1 Hz).The resulting high-resolution dive profiles were used to: (1) calculate an accurate index of foraging effort based on the detection of vertical sinuosity switches (i.e. hunting _highrestime); (2) produce an SRDL-equivalent low-resolution dataset using a broken stick algorithm; and (3) from each low-resolution dive calculate a set of candidate foraging effort indices.

Results

Hunting _lowrestime, which is the total time spent in decreased vertical velocity segments of the dive, was the foraging effort index that best correlated with hunting _highrestime. Hunting _highresmode of SES dives (highly sinuous parts of high-resolution dives) was associated with 77 % of total PrCA. In comparison, Hunting _lowressegments of SES dives were associated with 68 % of PrCA as well as with four times more PrCA than transit _lowressegments.

Conclusion

We found a low-resolution index which indicates foraging activity within a highly summarised dive profile and which identified most PrCA, despite degraded information transmitted by SLDRs. Used in combination with other measurements of the in situ environment, the hunting _lowresindex could be used in numerous integrated marine ecology studies, such as habitat use studies that are crucial to facilitate more effective conservation.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Heerah et al.

【 图 表 】

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