Can dive cycle models predict patterns of foraging behaviour? Diving by common eiders in an Arctic polynya

Heath, Joel P.; Gilchrist, H. Grant; Ydenberg, Ronald C.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.10.015

Cited by 22 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…This model predicts that maximum foraging effort should occur during slack currents, when it takes less time to travel to the bottom and there is more time available to feed on a given dive (see also Heath et al 2007). Relative to predictions of the profitability model, eiders undermatched slow current speeds and overmatched faster currents, providing weak support for this hypothesis (r ¼ 0.588, n ¼ 13, p ¼ 0.035; sum of squares ¼ 175.91).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Maximizing rate or efficiency over the long term in the wild can be a complex process. For example, animals cannot run indefinitely at a constant maximum dash speed, and similarly may optimize energy intake at different timescales (Ydenberg 1998;Fortin et al 2002;Heath et al 2007). In some situations, long-term rewards may be best achieved by a short-term reduction in effort so that the best strategies involve intermittent bouts of inactivity (Williams et al 2000;Kramer & McLaughlin 2001;Wienstein 2001;Heath et al 2008), or more complex temporal structuring of activity patterns (Cole 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The benthic invertebrates consumed by eiders are swallowed whole along with the shell and processed by grinding in the gizzard, making it plausible that the rate of intake of these bulky prey exceeds the rate at which they can be processed (Guillemette 1994;Kersten & Visser 1996). In this paper we investigate whether and how processes of tidal current change, diving energetics and digestive processing interact to influence patterns of foraging behaviour (Wiener 1992;Guillemette 1994Guillemette , 1998Heath et al 2007). We present this as a quantitative case study of how the interaction between processes with different rates or timescales can have a complex result on the ecological dynamics of an organism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, research on locomotion and exercise physiology indicates that a short-term reduction in the rate of locomotion can actually increase the amount of work performed in the longer term, because endurance increases (Kramer & McLaughlin 2001;Wienstein 2001; see also Ydenberg & Hurd 1998;Heath et al 2008). Similarly, Heath et al (2007) demonstrated that diving models based on rate maximization (Kramer 1988;Houston & Carbone 1992) were inadequate to explain diving patterns of foraging eider ducks, probably owing to longer term processes such as digestion. Behavioural routines can be influenced by a variety of physiological and ecological processes with different timescales, resulting in dynamics that may not be easily explained without formal analysis and precluding their study in isolation (McNamara et al 1987;McNamara & Houston 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This limits time available for foraging to about 250 min of a full 372 min tidal cycle from peak flood to peak ebb. Heath et al (2007) measured the diving behaviour of eiders wintering at Ulutsatuq polynya using underwater video recordings, and found that the time required to descend to the bottom varied directly with current speed, but the total dive duration did not change. As current speed slowed and travel time decreased, foraging time at depth increased (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interactions between rate processes with different timescales explain counterintuitive foraging patterns of arctic wintering eiders

2010

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To maximize fitness, animals must respond to a variety of processes that operate at different rates or timescales. Appropriate decisions could therefore involve complex interactions among these processes. For example, eiders wintering in the arctic sea ice must consider locomotion and physiology of diving for benthic invertebrates, digestive processing rate and a nonlinear decrease in profitability of diving as currents increase over the tidal cycle. Using a multi-scale dynamic modelling approach and continuous field observations of individuals, we demonstrate that the strategy that maximizes long-term energy gain involves resting during the most profitable foraging period (slack currents). These counterintuitive foraging patterns are an adaptive trade-off between multiple overlapping rate processes and cannot be explained by classical rate-maximizing optimization theory, which only considers a single timescale and predicts a constant rate of foraging. By reducing foraging and instead digesting during slack currents, eiders structure their activity in order to maximize long-term energetic gain over an entire tide cycle. This study reveals how counterintuitive patterns and a complex functional response can result from a simple trade-off among several overlapping rate processes, emphasizing the necessity of a multi-scale approach for understanding adaptive routines in the wild and evaluating mechanisms in ecological time series.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interactions between rate processes with different timescales explain counterintuitive foraging patterns of arctic wintering eiders

2010

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A Little Less Arctic

Ferguson¹,

Loseto²,

Mallory³

2010

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this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Now, visits by local people from the nearby community at Coral Harbour are rare and usually occur only to conduct tourists or to hunt walrus at the several large haulouts along the coast. We see them no more than twice a season. For weeks at a time our only reminder of the world outside Coats Island is the daily flight from LondonCalgary which passes over us about mid-day. In the past the faint radio voice emanating from the Nunavut Research Institute and its predecessor, the DIAND Iqaluit Laboratory was a daily link to the outside, but since we got a satellite phone it has been our choice to call out, rather than a daily routine. On a crowded planet, northern Hudson Bay stands out as an enduringly uncrowded place.In 1992, I sailed across the northeast corner of Hudson Bay, from Coral Harbour to Ivujivik, via Coats and Mansel islands, in an elderly Peterhead, the Terregluk, crewed by members of the Nakoolak and Alogut families. The weather as we left Coats was calm and clear, with the early morning sun lighting up the steam rising over a great herd of walrus on the Cape Pembroke haul-out. We lingered to photograph the haul-out, but within an hour of heading eastwards the wind rose out of the northeast and the sea kicked up to Beaufort 5. The non-Inuit members began to look a little green. It was at this point that I realised our only navigation aid was a rather battered looking binnacle. There was no chart. At moments such as that you become acutely conscious of how empty a place northern Hudson Bay is.Given the size of the sea that rose quickly the captain could not steer a straight course but had to continually adjust to the waves, now running with them, now taking advantage of some minor amelioration to broadside them. As I watched the needle of the compass swing backwards and forwards over 180° I wondered where on earth we were going to land up and how we would figure out where we were viii Foreword when we did. Ten hours later, after a day of grey skies and lumpen seas, we sighted a nondescript line of shingle and rock on the horizon. As we coasted agonisingly slowly eastwards I finally made out a navigation beacon near the shore and realised that our landfall was precisely as planned, at the northern tip of Mansel Island. Somehow, through that heaving grey waste, with only a gyrating compass needle as guide, Jimmy, our captain, had kept us on course: a reminder that the sea and atmosphere have their signs for those who can read them.Reading the signs is what this book is about. The Hudson Bay region is experiencing ...

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Effects of Climate Change, Altered Sea-Ice Distribution and Seasonal Phenology on Marine Birds

Mallory

Gaston

Gilchrist

et al. 2010

A Little Less Arctic

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Can dive cycle models predict patterns of foraging behaviour? Diving by common eiders in an Arctic polynya

Cited by 22 publications

References 42 publications

Interactions between rate processes with different timescales explain counterintuitive foraging patterns of arctic wintering eiders

Interactions between rate processes with different timescales explain counterintuitive foraging patterns of arctic wintering eiders

A Little Less Arctic

Effects of Climate Change, Altered Sea-Ice Distribution and Seasonal Phenology on Marine Birds

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