Food limitation leads to behavioral diversification and dietary specialization in sea otters.

ABSTRACT: Dietary diversity often varies inversely with prey resource abundance. This pattern, although typically measured at the population level, is usually assumed to also characterize the behavior of individual animals within the population. However, the pattern might also be produced by changes in the degree of variation among individuals. Here we report on dietary and associated behavioral changes that occurred with the experimental translocation of sea otters from a food-poor to a food-rich environment. Although the diets of all individuals were broadly similar in the food-rich environment, a behaviorally based dietary polymorphism existed in the food-poor environment. Higher dietary diversity under low resource abundance was largely driven by greater variation among individuals. We further s

SUBMITTER: Tinker MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2206575 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature