How animals distribute themselves in space: variable energy landscapes ...

• Main Authors: Masello, Juan F., Kato, Akiko, Sommerfeld, Julia, Mattern, Thomas, Quillfeldt, Petra, Justus Liebig University Giessen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Universitätsbibliothek Gießen 2017
• Subjects: energetic costs; energy landscape; foraging effort; foraging strategy; landscape of fear; ddc570; Pygoscelis papua
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.22029/jlupub-8742; https://jlupub.ub.uni-giessen.de//handle/jlupub/9354

Background: Foraging efficiency determines whether animals will be able to raise healthy broods, maintain their own condition, avoid predators and ultimately increase their fitness. Using accelerometers and GPS loggers, features of the habitat and the way animals deal with variable conditions can be translated into energetic costs of movement, which, in turn, can be translated to energy landscapes.We investigated energy landscapes in Gentoo Penguins Pygoscelis papua from two colonies at New Island, Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Results: In our study, the marine areas used by the penguins, parameters of dive depth and the proportion of pelagic and benthic dives varied both between years and colonies. As a consequence, the energy landscapes also varied between the years, and we discuss how this was related to differences in food availability, which were also reflected in differences in carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values and isotopic niche metrics. In the second year, the energy landscape was characterized ...