Foraging fidelity as a recipe for a long life: foraging strategy and longevity in male southern elephant seals.

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Authier, Matthieu, Bentaleb, Ilham, Ponchon, Aurore, Martin, Céline, Guinet, Christophe
• Other Authors: Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier (UMR ISEM), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Institut de recherche pour le développement IRD : UR226-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2012
• Subjects: [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Elephant Seal; Elephant Seals; Mirounga leonina; Southern Elephant Seal; Southern Elephant Seals; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00688779; https://hal.science/hal-00688779/document; https://hal.science/hal-00688779/file/pone.0032026.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032026

International audience 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 ([Formula: see text]) 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.