Journal article
Structure and dynamics of minke whale surfacing patterns in the gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada
PLoS ONE, Vol.10(5), Article e0126396
2015
Abstract
Animal behavioral patterns can help us understand physiological and ecological constraints on animals and its influence on fitness. The surfacing patterns of aquatic air-breathing mammals constitute a behavioral pattern that has evolved as a trade-off between the need to replenish oxygen stores at the surface and the need to conduct other activities underwater. This study aims to better understand the surfacing pattern of a marine top predator, the minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), by investigating how their dive duration and surfacing pattern changes across their activity range. Activities were classified into resting, traveling, surface feeding and foraging at depth. For each activity, we classified dives into short and long dives and then estimated the temporal dependence between dive types. We found that minke whales modified their surfacing pattern in an activity-specific manner, both by changing the expression of their dives (i.e. density distribution) and the temporal dependence (transition probability) between dive types. As the depth of the prey layer increased between activities, the surfacing pattern of foraging whales became increasingly structured, going from a pattern dominated by long dives, when feeding at the surface, to a pattern where isolated long dives were followed by an increasing number of breaths (i.e. short dives), when the whale was foraging at depth. A similar shift in surfacing pattern occurred when prey handling time (inferred from surface corralling maneuvers) increased for surface feeding whales. The surfacing pattern also differed between feeding and non-feeding whales. Resting whales did not structure their surfacing pattern, while traveling whales did, possibly as a way to minimize cost of transport. Our results also suggest that minke whales might balance their oxygen level over multiple, rather than single, dive cycles.
Details
- Title
- Structure and dynamics of minke whale surfacing patterns in the gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada
- Authors/Creators
- F. Christiansen (Author/Creator) - Deakin UniversityN.M. Lynas (Author/Creator) - Foundation for Marine Environment Research (ORES), Basel, Switzerland; Ocean Research and Education Society (ORES), Les Bergeronnes, Quebec, Canada.D. Lusseau (Author/Creator) - University of AberdeenU. Tscherter (Author/Creator) - Foundation for Marine Environment Research (ORES), Basel, Switzerland; Ocean Research and Education Society (ORES), Les Bergeronnes, Quebec, Canada.
- Publication Details
- PLoS ONE, Vol.10(5), Article e0126396
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science
- Identifiers
- 991005540655707891
- Copyright
- © 2015 Christiansen et al.
- Murdoch Affiliation
- Murdoch University
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites
Metrics
130 File views/ downloads
55 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Citation topics
- 3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
- 3.35 Zoology & Animal Ecology
- 3.35.796 Marine Mammal Ecology
- Web Of Science research areas
- Zoology
- ESI research areas
- Plant & Animal Science