Back to Search
Start Over
Understanding the ontogeny of foraging behaviour: insights from combining marine predator bio-logging with satellite-derived oceanography in hidden Markov models
- Source :
- Journal of the Royal Society Interface
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- The Royal Society, 2018.
-
Abstract
- This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The development of foraging strategies that enable juveniles to efficiently identify and exploit predictable habitat features is critical for survival and long-term fitness. In the marine environment, meso- and sub-mesoscale features such as oceanographic fronts offer a visible cue to enhanced foraging conditions, but how individuals learn to identify these features is a mystery. In this study, we investigate age-related differences in the fine-scale foraging behaviour of adult (aged ≥ 5 years) and immature (aged 2-4 years) northern gannets Morus bassanus. Using high-resolution GPS-loggers, we reveal that adults have a much narrower foraging distribution than immature birds and much higher individual foraging site fidelity. By conditioning the transition probabilities of a hidden Markov model on satellite-derived measures of frontal activity, we then demonstrate that adults show a stronger response to frontal activity than immature birds, and are more likely to commence foraging behaviour as frontal intensity increases. Together, these results indicate that adult gannets are more proficient foragers than immatures, supporting the hypothesis that foraging specialisations are learned during individual exploratory behaviour in early life. Such memory-based individual foraging strategies may also explain the extended period of immaturity observed in gannets and many other long-lived species. Publisher PDF
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Computer science
QH301 Biology
Oceanography
01 natural sciences
Biochemistry
Movement ecology
foraging ecology
QA
Hidden Markov model
Predator
GC
learning
Ecology
Logging
Markov Chains
Habitat
movement ecology
GC Oceanography
Foraging ecology
Biotechnology
Research Article
Exploit
Foraging
finite-size Lyapunov exponent
Biomedical Engineering
Biophysics
Bioengineering
010603 evolutionary biology
Biomaterials
Birds
QH301
Marine vertebrate
Learning
Animals
Animal telemetry
QA Mathematics
SDG 14 - Life Below Water
Ecosystem
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
DAS
Feeding Behavior
Predatory Behavior
marine vertebrate
Satellite
Finite-size Lyapunov exponent
Life Sciences–Mathematics interface
animal telemetry
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 17425689
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of the Royal Society Interface
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....3e082a4204d0b3f1bff94e41aba6c38b