Body condition influences ontogeny of foraging behavior in juvenile southern elephant seals.

ABSTRACT: Ontogeny of diving and foraging behavior in marine top predators is poorly understood despite its importance in population recruitment. This lack of knowledge is partly due to the difficulties of monitoring juveniles in the wild, which is linked to high mortality early in life. Pinnipeds are good models for studying the development of foraging behaviors because juveniles are large enough to robustly carry tracking devices for many months. Moreover, parental assistance is absent after a juvenile departs for its first foraging trip, minimizing confounding effects of parental input on the development of foraging skills. In this study, we tracked 20 newly weaned juvenile southern elephant seals from Kerguelen Islands for up to 338 days during their first trip at sea following weaning. We used

SUBMITTER: Orgeret F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6341977 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature