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Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features

Marine predators face the challenge of reliably finding prey that is patchily distributed in space and time. Predators make movement decisions at multiple spatial and temporal scales, yet we have a limited understanding of how habitat selection at multiple scales translates into foraging performance...

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Autores principales: Fahlbusch, James A., Czapanskiy, Max F., Calambokidis, John, Cade, David E., Abrahms, Briana, Hazen, Elliott L., Goldbogen, Jeremy A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9382224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35975432
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1180
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author Fahlbusch, James A.
Czapanskiy, Max F.
Calambokidis, John
Cade, David E.
Abrahms, Briana
Hazen, Elliott L.
Goldbogen, Jeremy A.
author_facet Fahlbusch, James A.
Czapanskiy, Max F.
Calambokidis, John
Cade, David E.
Abrahms, Briana
Hazen, Elliott L.
Goldbogen, Jeremy A.
author_sort Fahlbusch, James A.
collection PubMed
description Marine predators face the challenge of reliably finding prey that is patchily distributed in space and time. Predators make movement decisions at multiple spatial and temporal scales, yet we have a limited understanding of how habitat selection at multiple scales translates into foraging performance. In the ocean, there is mounting evidence that submesoscale (i.e. less than 100 km) processes drive the formation of dense prey patches that should hypothetically provide feeding hot spots and increase predator foraging success. Here, we integrated environmental remote-sensing with high-resolution animal-borne biologging data to evaluate submesoscale surface current features in relation to the habitat selection and foraging performance of blue whales in the California Current System. Our study revealed a consistent functional relationship in which blue whales disproportionately foraged within dynamic aggregative submesoscale features at both the regional and feeding site scales across seasons, regions and years. Moreover, we found that blue whale feeding rates increased in areas with stronger aggregative features, suggesting that these features indicate areas of higher prey density. The use of fine-scale, dynamic features by foraging blue whales underscores the need to take these features into account when designating critical habitat and may help inform strategies to mitigate the impacts of human activities for the species.
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spelling pubmed-93822242022-08-29 Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features Fahlbusch, James A. Czapanskiy, Max F. Calambokidis, John Cade, David E. Abrahms, Briana Hazen, Elliott L. Goldbogen, Jeremy A. Proc Biol Sci Ecology Marine predators face the challenge of reliably finding prey that is patchily distributed in space and time. Predators make movement decisions at multiple spatial and temporal scales, yet we have a limited understanding of how habitat selection at multiple scales translates into foraging performance. In the ocean, there is mounting evidence that submesoscale (i.e. less than 100 km) processes drive the formation of dense prey patches that should hypothetically provide feeding hot spots and increase predator foraging success. Here, we integrated environmental remote-sensing with high-resolution animal-borne biologging data to evaluate submesoscale surface current features in relation to the habitat selection and foraging performance of blue whales in the California Current System. Our study revealed a consistent functional relationship in which blue whales disproportionately foraged within dynamic aggregative submesoscale features at both the regional and feeding site scales across seasons, regions and years. Moreover, we found that blue whale feeding rates increased in areas with stronger aggregative features, suggesting that these features indicate areas of higher prey density. The use of fine-scale, dynamic features by foraging blue whales underscores the need to take these features into account when designating critical habitat and may help inform strategies to mitigate the impacts of human activities for the species. The Royal Society 2022-08-31 2022-08-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9382224/ /pubmed/35975432 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1180 Text en © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Fahlbusch, James A.
Czapanskiy, Max F.
Calambokidis, John
Cade, David E.
Abrahms, Briana
Hazen, Elliott L.
Goldbogen, Jeremy A.
Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title_full Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title_fullStr Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title_full_unstemmed Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title_short Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
title_sort blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9382224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35975432
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1180
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