Estimating the relative energetic cost of foraging in Pacific Coast Feeding Group grey whales from biologging data ...

• Main Author: Colson, Kate M.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2023
• Subjects: baleen whale
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0435623; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0435623

Biologging tags that record high-resolution tri-axial accelerometry data are proving to be integral to the study of foraging ecology of large, free-roaming marine mammals, such as whales. They have been applied to a number of baleen whale species that feed pelagically through lunges or ram filtration to quantitatively define behaviours and estimate energetic costs. However, few behavioural ecology studies using accelerometry data have been conducted on grey whales, a unique baleen whale that performs benthic suction feeding. Using suction cup tri-axial accelerometer tag deployments on 10 Pacific Coast Feeding Group (PCFG) grey whales along the Oregon and Washington coasts, I defined signals of foraging behaviour at both the broad state (dive) and foraging tactic (roll event) scales. I then estimated the relative energetic cost of these behaviours using energy expenditure proxies derived from the accelerometry data—Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration (ODBA; ms⁻²), stroke rate (Hz), stroke amplitude (radians per ...