Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies.
Understanding the mechanisms that drive prey selection is a major challenge in foraging ecology. Most studies of foraging strategies have focused on behavioural costs, and have generally failed to recognize that differences in the quality of prey may be as important to predators as the costs of acqu...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:06c099545dbb49c39f2b199c6c51734b 2023-05-15T17:34:31+02:00 Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. Jérôme Spitz Andrew W Trites Vanessa Becquet Anik Brind'Amour Yves Cherel Robert Galois Vincent Ridoux 2012-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 https://doaj.org/article/06c099545dbb49c39f2b199c6c51734b EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/23185542/pdf/?tool=EBI https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 https://doaj.org/article/06c099545dbb49c39f2b199c6c51734b PLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 11, p e50096 (2012) Medicine R Science Q article 2012 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 2022-12-31T05:07:05Z Understanding the mechanisms that drive prey selection is a major challenge in foraging ecology. Most studies of foraging strategies have focused on behavioural costs, and have generally failed to recognize that differences in the quality of prey may be as important to predators as the costs of acquisition. Here, we tested whether there is a relationship between the quality of diets (kJ · g(-1)) consumed by cetaceans in the North Atlantic and their metabolic costs of living as estimated by indicators of muscle performance (mitochondrial density, n = 60, and lipid content, n = 37). We found that the cost of living of 11 cetacean species is tightly coupled with the quality of prey they consume. This relationship between diet quality and cost of living appears to be independent of phylogeny and body size, and runs counter to predictions that stem from the well-known scaling relationships between mass and metabolic rates. Our finding suggests that the quality of prey rather than the sheer quantity of food is a major determinant of foraging strategies employed by predators to meet their specific energy requirements. This predator-specific dependence on food quality appears to reflect the evolution of ecological strategies at a species level, and has implications for risk assessment associated with the consequences of changing the quality and quantities of prey available to top predators in marine ecosystems. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLoS ONE 7 11 e50096 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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English |
topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Jérôme Spitz Andrew W Trites Vanessa Becquet Anik Brind'Amour Yves Cherel Robert Galois Vincent Ridoux Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
Understanding the mechanisms that drive prey selection is a major challenge in foraging ecology. Most studies of foraging strategies have focused on behavioural costs, and have generally failed to recognize that differences in the quality of prey may be as important to predators as the costs of acquisition. Here, we tested whether there is a relationship between the quality of diets (kJ · g(-1)) consumed by cetaceans in the North Atlantic and their metabolic costs of living as estimated by indicators of muscle performance (mitochondrial density, n = 60, and lipid content, n = 37). We found that the cost of living of 11 cetacean species is tightly coupled with the quality of prey they consume. This relationship between diet quality and cost of living appears to be independent of phylogeny and body size, and runs counter to predictions that stem from the well-known scaling relationships between mass and metabolic rates. Our finding suggests that the quality of prey rather than the sheer quantity of food is a major determinant of foraging strategies employed by predators to meet their specific energy requirements. This predator-specific dependence on food quality appears to reflect the evolution of ecological strategies at a species level, and has implications for risk assessment associated with the consequences of changing the quality and quantities of prey available to top predators in marine ecosystems. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jérôme Spitz Andrew W Trites Vanessa Becquet Anik Brind'Amour Yves Cherel Robert Galois Vincent Ridoux |
author_facet |
Jérôme Spitz Andrew W Trites Vanessa Becquet Anik Brind'Amour Yves Cherel Robert Galois Vincent Ridoux |
author_sort |
Jérôme Spitz |
title |
Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
title_short |
Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
title_full |
Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
title_fullStr |
Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
title_sort |
cost of living dictates what whales, dolphins and porpoises eat: the importance of prey quality on predator foraging strategies. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 https://doaj.org/article/06c099545dbb49c39f2b199c6c51734b |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 11, p e50096 (2012) |
op_relation |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/23185542/pdf/?tool=EBI https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 https://doaj.org/article/06c099545dbb49c39f2b199c6c51734b |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050096 |
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PLoS ONE |
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7 |
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11 |
container_start_page |
e50096 |
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