Leave or stay? Video-logger revealed foraging efficiency of humpback whales under temporal change in prey density.

ABSTRACT: Central place foraging theory (CPF) has been used to predict the optimal patch residence time for air-breathing marine predators in response to patch quality. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) forage on densely aggregated prey, which may induce drastic change in prey density in a single feeding event. Thus, the decision whether to leave or stay after each feeding event in a single dive in response to this drastic change, should have a significant effect on prey exploitation efficiency. However, whether humpback whales show adaptive behavior in response to the diminishing prey density in a single dive has been technically difficult to test. Here, we studied the foraging behavior of humpback whales in response to change in prey density in a single dive and calculated the efficiency of

SUBMITTER: Akiyama Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6363283 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature