Convergence of marine megafauna movement patterns in coastal and open oceans.

ABSTRACT: The extent of increasing anthropogenic impacts on large marine vertebrates partly depends on the animals' movement patterns. Effective conservation requires identification of the key drivers of movement including intrinsic properties and extrinsic constraints associated with the dynamic nature of the environments the animals inhabit. However, the relative importance of intrinsic versus extrinsic factors remains elusive. We analyze a global dataset of ∼2.8 million locations from >2,600 tracked individuals across 50 marine vertebrates evolutionarily separated by millions of years and using different locomotion modes (fly, swim, walk/paddle). Strikingly, movement patterns show a remarkable convergence, being strongly conserved across species and independent of body length and mass, despite th

SUBMITTER: Sequeira AMM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5866563 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature