Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird
Little auks ( Alle alle ) are one of the most numerous seabird species in the world and feed primarily on copepods in arctic waters. Their high daily energy requirements leave them vulnerable to current changes in the arctic plankton community, where a smaller, less-profitable copepod species ( Cala...
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fthighwire:oai:open-archive.highwire.org:jexbio:221/13/jeb182170 2023-05-15T13:16:19+02:00 Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird Enstipp, Manfred R. Descamps, Sébastien Fort, Jérôme Grémillet, David 2018-07-01 23:54:55.0 text/html http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/221/13/jeb182170 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 en eng The Company of Biologists Ltd http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/221/13/jeb182170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 Copyright (C) 2018, Company of Biologists SHORT COMMUNICATION TEXT 2018 fthighwire https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 2018-12-30T19:27:16Z Little auks ( Alle alle ) are one of the most numerous seabird species in the world and feed primarily on copepods in arctic waters. Their high daily energy requirements leave them vulnerable to current changes in the arctic plankton community, where a smaller, less-profitable copepod species ( Calanus finmarchicus ) becomes increasingly abundant. Little auks have been estimated to require ∼60,000 copepods per day, necessitating prey capture rates of ∼6 copepods per second underwater. To achieve such performance, it has been suggested that little auks capture their prey by (non-visual) filter feeding. We tested this hypothesis by exposing little auks to varying copepod densities within a shallow experimental pool and filming their prey capture behaviour. At none of the copepod densities tested did birds filter feed. Instead, all birds captured copepods by what we identified as visually guided suction feeding, achieved through an extension of their sub-lingual pouch. Suction feeding is very common in fish and marine mammals, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that it has been specifically identified in a seabird species. While presumably less efficient than filter feeding, this behaviour may allow little auks to foster higher resilience when facing the consequences of arctic climate change. Text Alle alle Arctic Calanus finmarchicus Climate change Copepods HighWire Press (Stanford University) Arctic Journal of Experimental Biology |
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HighWire Press (Stanford University) |
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English |
topic |
SHORT COMMUNICATION |
spellingShingle |
SHORT COMMUNICATION Enstipp, Manfred R. Descamps, Sébastien Fort, Jérôme Grémillet, David Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
topic_facet |
SHORT COMMUNICATION |
description |
Little auks ( Alle alle ) are one of the most numerous seabird species in the world and feed primarily on copepods in arctic waters. Their high daily energy requirements leave them vulnerable to current changes in the arctic plankton community, where a smaller, less-profitable copepod species ( Calanus finmarchicus ) becomes increasingly abundant. Little auks have been estimated to require ∼60,000 copepods per day, necessitating prey capture rates of ∼6 copepods per second underwater. To achieve such performance, it has been suggested that little auks capture their prey by (non-visual) filter feeding. We tested this hypothesis by exposing little auks to varying copepod densities within a shallow experimental pool and filming their prey capture behaviour. At none of the copepod densities tested did birds filter feed. Instead, all birds captured copepods by what we identified as visually guided suction feeding, achieved through an extension of their sub-lingual pouch. Suction feeding is very common in fish and marine mammals, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that it has been specifically identified in a seabird species. While presumably less efficient than filter feeding, this behaviour may allow little auks to foster higher resilience when facing the consequences of arctic climate change. |
format |
Text |
author |
Enstipp, Manfred R. Descamps, Sébastien Fort, Jérôme Grémillet, David |
author_facet |
Enstipp, Manfred R. Descamps, Sébastien Fort, Jérôme Grémillet, David |
author_sort |
Enstipp, Manfred R. |
title |
Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
title_short |
Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
title_full |
Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
title_fullStr |
Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
title_full_unstemmed |
Almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
title_sort |
almost like a whale - first evidence of suction feeding in a seabird |
publisher |
The Company of Biologists Ltd |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/221/13/jeb182170 https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Alle alle Arctic Calanus finmarchicus Climate change Copepods |
genre_facet |
Alle alle Arctic Calanus finmarchicus Climate change Copepods |
op_relation |
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/short/221/13/jeb182170 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 |
op_rights |
Copyright (C) 2018, Company of Biologists |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.182170 |
container_title |
Journal of Experimental Biology |
_version_ |
1766273516211011584 |