The summer diet of fish-eating killer whales in the Avacha Gulf of Kamchatka: Are there any preferences?

Killer whales are top predators in marine trophic chains, and therefore their feeding preferences can substantially affect the abundance of species on the lower trophic levels. Killer whales are known to feed on many different types of prey from small fish to large whales, but a given killer whale population usually focuses on a specific type of prey. Stable isotope analysis is widely used to study whale diets, because direct observations are often impossible. Killer whale feeding habits in the western North Pacific are poorly studied, and the large‐scale stable isotope analysis provides a unique opportunity to gain insights into the trophic links of this top predator. In this study, we compare the δ13C and δ15N stable isotope values from killer whale skin samples obtained in different areas of the western North Pacific from fish‐eating (R‐type) and mammal‐eating (T‐type) killer whale ecotypes. The effect of ecotype was highly significant: both carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values were lower in R‐type whales than in T‐type whales. The geographical variation also affected killer whale stable isotope values due to both the differences in killer whale diet and the variation in baseline stable isotope values across the study areas.

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Differences in the Diet of Reproductively Isolated Ecotypes of Killer Whales (Orcinus orca Linnaeus, 1758) in the Seas of the Russian Far East

Filatova,

Fedutin,

Belonovich

et al. 2023

Russ J Mar Biol

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The summer diet of fish-eating killer whales in the Avacha Gulf of Kamchatka: Are there any preferences?

Cited by 6 publications

References 48 publications

Killer whale (Orcinus orca) depredation on longline groundfish fisheries in the northwestern Pacific

Killer whale (Orcinus orca) depredation on longline groundfish fisheries in the northwestern Pacific

Ecotype and geographical variation in carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values in western North Pacific killer whales (Orcinus orca)

Differences in the Diet of Reproductively Isolated Ecotypes of Killer Whales (Orcinus orca Linnaeus, 1758) in the Seas of the Russian Far East

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