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Individual, ecological, and anthropogenic influences on activity budgets of long-finned pilot whales

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Isojunno_et_al_2017_Ecosphere.pdf (4.500Mb)
Date
27/12/2017
Author
Isojunno, S.
Sadykova, D.
DeRuiter, S.
Curé, C.
Visser, F.
Thomas, L.
Miller, P. J. O.
Harris, C. M.
Funder
Office of Naval Research
Office of Naval Research
Grant ID
N00014-12-1-0204
N00014 08 1 0984
Keywords
Anthropogenic noise
Activity synchrony
Benthic habitat
Deep diving mammal
DTAG
Ethogram
Globicephala melas
Hidden Markov model
Naval sonar
QH301 Biology
DAS
BDC
R2C
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Abstract
Time allocation to different activities and habitats enables individuals to modulate their perceived risks and access to resources, and can reveal important trade-offs between fitness-enhancing activities (e.g., feeding vs. social behavior). Species with long reproductive cycles and high parental investment, such as marine mammals, rely on such behavioral plasticity to cope with rapid environmental change, including anthropogenic stressors. We quantified activity budgets of free-ranging long-finned pilot whales in order to assess individual time trade-offs between foraging and other behaviors in different individual and ecological contexts, and during experimental sound exposures. The experiments included 1-2 and 6-7 kHz naval sonar exposures (a potential anthropogenic stressor), playback of killer whale (a potential predator/competitor) vocalizations, and negative controls. We combined multiple time series data from digital acoustic recording tags (DTAG) as well as group-level social behavior data from visual observations of tagged whales at the surface. The data were classified into near-surface behaviors and dive types (using a hidden Markov model for dive transitions) and aggregated into time budgets. On average, individuals (N=19) spent most of their time (69%) resting and transiting near surface, 21% in shallow dives (depth <40m), and only 10% of their time in deep foraging dives, of which 65% reached a depth 10m from the sea bottom. Individuals in the largest of three body size classes or accompanied by calves tended to spend more time foraging than others. Simultaneous tagging of pairs of individuals showed that up to 50% of the activity budget was synchronized between conspecifics with decreased synchrony during foraging periods. Individuals spent less time foraging when forming larger non-vocal aggregations of individuals in late afternoons, and more time foraging when in the mid-range of water depths (300-400m) available in the study area (50-700m). Individuals reduced foraging time by 83% (29-96%) during their first exposure to sonar, but not during killer whale sound playbacks. A relative increase in foraging during repeat sonar exposures indicated habituation or change in response tactic. We discuss the possible adaptive value of these trade-offs in time allocation to reduce individual conflict while maintaining benefits of group living.
Citation
Isojunno , S , Sadykova , D , DeRuiter , S , Curé , C , Visser , F , Thomas , L , Miller , P J O & Harris , C M 2017 , ' Individual, ecological, and anthropogenic influences on activity budgets of long-finned pilot whales ' , Ecosphere , vol. 8 , no. 12 , e02044 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2044
Publication
Ecosphere
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2044
ISSN
2150-8925
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 Isojunno et al. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Description
The authors would like to thank sponsors, NL Ministry of Defence, NOR Ministry of Defence, U.S. Office of Naval Research (N00014-08-1-0984, N00014-10-1-0355, N00014-14-1-0390), FR Ministry of Defence (DGA; public market no. 15860052), World Wildlife Fund Norway (9E0682), and French Total Foundation and Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation. The statistical development work was supported by a separate grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research (N00014-12-1-0204), under the project entitled Multi-study OCean acoustics Human effects Analysis (MOCHA).
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12408

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