The cost of a meal: factors influencing prey profitability in Australian fur seals.

ABSTRACT: Knowledge of the factors shaping the foraging behaviour of species is central to understanding their ecosystem role and predicting their response to environmental variability. To maximise survival and reproduction, foraging strategies must balance the costs and benefits related to energy needed to pursue, manipulate, and consume prey with the nutritional reward obtained. While such information is vital for understanding how changes in prey assemblages may affect predators, determining these components is inherently difficult in cryptic predators. The present study used animal-borne video data loggers to investigate the costs and benefits related to different prey types for female Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus), a primarily benthic foraging species in the low

SUBMITTER: Meyers N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8667761 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature