Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals
Identifying individual factors affecting life-span has long been of interest for biologists and demographers: how do some individuals manage to dodge the forces of mortality when the vast majority does not? Answering this question is not straightforward, partly because of the arduous task of accurat...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:plo:pone00:0032026 2024-04-14T08:11:05+00:00 Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals Matthieu Authier Ilham Bentaleb Aurore Ponchon Céline Martin Christophe Guinet https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026&type=printable unknown https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026&type=printable article ftrepec 2024-03-19T10:35:04Z Identifying individual factors affecting life-span has long been of interest for biologists and demographers: how do some individuals manage to dodge the forces of mortality when the vast majority does not? Answering this question is not straightforward, partly because of the arduous task of accurately estimating longevity in wild animals, and of the statistical difficulties in correlating time-varying ecological covariables with a single number (time-to-event). Here we investigated the relationship between foraging strategy and life-span in an elusive and large marine predator: the Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina). Using teeth recovered from dead males on îles Kerguelen, Southern Ocean, we first aged specimens. Then we used stable isotopic measurements of carbon () in dentin to study the effect of foraging location on individual life-span. Using a joint change-point/survival modelling approach which enabled us to describe the ontogenetic trajectory of foraging, we unveiled how a stable foraging strategy developed early in life positively covaried with longevity in male Southern Elephant Seals. Coupled with an appropriate statistical analysis, stable isotopes have the potential to tackle ecological questions of long standing interest but whose answer has been hampered by logistic constraints. Article in Journal/Newspaper Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) Southern Ocean Kerguelen Îles Kerguelen ENVELOPE(69.167,69.167,-49.250,-49.250) |
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RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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description |
Identifying individual factors affecting life-span has long been of interest for biologists and demographers: how do some individuals manage to dodge the forces of mortality when the vast majority does not? Answering this question is not straightforward, partly because of the arduous task of accurately estimating longevity in wild animals, and of the statistical difficulties in correlating time-varying ecological covariables with a single number (time-to-event). Here we investigated the relationship between foraging strategy and life-span in an elusive and large marine predator: the Southern Elephant Seal (Mirounga leonina). Using teeth recovered from dead males on îles Kerguelen, Southern Ocean, we first aged specimens. Then we used stable isotopic measurements of carbon () in dentin to study the effect of foraging location on individual life-span. Using a joint change-point/survival modelling approach which enabled us to describe the ontogenetic trajectory of foraging, we unveiled how a stable foraging strategy developed early in life positively covaried with longevity in male Southern Elephant Seals. Coupled with an appropriate statistical analysis, stable isotopes have the potential to tackle ecological questions of long standing interest but whose answer has been hampered by logistic constraints. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Matthieu Authier Ilham Bentaleb Aurore Ponchon Céline Martin Christophe Guinet |
spellingShingle |
Matthieu Authier Ilham Bentaleb Aurore Ponchon Céline Martin Christophe Guinet Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
author_facet |
Matthieu Authier Ilham Bentaleb Aurore Ponchon Céline Martin Christophe Guinet |
author_sort |
Matthieu Authier |
title |
Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
title_short |
Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
title_full |
Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
title_fullStr |
Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
title_full_unstemmed |
Foraging Fidelity as a Recipe for a Long Life: Foraging Strategy and Longevity in Male Southern Elephant Seals |
title_sort |
foraging fidelity as a recipe for a long life: foraging strategy and longevity in male southern elephant seals |
url |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026&type=printable |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(69.167,69.167,-49.250,-49.250) |
geographic |
Southern Ocean Kerguelen Îles Kerguelen |
geographic_facet |
Southern Ocean Kerguelen Îles Kerguelen |
genre |
Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean |
genre_facet |
Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal Southern Elephant Seals Southern Ocean |
op_relation |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0032026&type=printable |
_version_ |
1796308772798332928 |