From high‑resolution to low‑resolution dive datasets: a new index to quantify the foraging effort of marine predators

• Published in: Animal Biotelemetry
• Main Authors: Heerah, Karine, Hindell, Mark A., Guinet, Christophe, Charrassin, Jean-Benoit
• Other Authors: Processus de couplage à Petite Echelle, Ecosystèmes et Prédateurs Supérieurs (PEPS), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies Hobart (IMAS), University of Tasmania Hobart, Australia (UTAS), Antarctic Climate & Ecosystem Cooperative Research Centre, Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ANR-07-VULN-0005,IPSOS-SEAL,Investigation of the vulnerability of the productivity of the Southern Ocean Subsystems to climate change: the Southern Elephant seal assessment from mid to high latitudes(2007)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2015
• Subjects: Accelerometers; Foraging behaviour; Marine ecology; Dive profile; Pinnipeds; Method; Satellite-linked time depth recorders; Argos tags; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Weddell; Elephant Seals; Southern Elephant Seals; Weddell Seal
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01328655; https://hal.science/hal-01328655/document; https://hal.science/hal-01328655/file/art_10.1186_s40317-015-0074-3.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1186/s40317-015-0074-3

International audience BackgroundIn the last decade, thousands of satellite-relayed data loggers (SRDLs) have been deployed, providing large datasets on marine predator movement patterns at sea and their diving behaviour. However, the latter is in a highly summarised, low-resolution form, from which it is difficult to make the sorts of important behavioural inferences that are possible from higher-resolution datasets (such as detection of likely foraging events). The main objective of this study was to develop a simple, but accurate tool to detect and quantify within-dive foraging periods in low-resolution dives.MethodTwo southern elephant seals were fitted with a head-mounted time depth recorder (TDR) (recording depth at 1 Hz) and an accelerometer (recording 3 axes of acceleration at 16 Hz) from which prey capture attempts were estimated (PrCA), and a Weddell seal was also fitted with a TDR (1 Hz).The resulting high-resolution dive profiles were used to: (1) calculate an accurate index of foraging effort based on the detection of vertical sinuosity switches (i.e. hunting highres time); (2) produce an SRDL-equivalent low-resolution dataset using a broken stick algorithm; and (3) from each low-resolution dive calculate a set of candidate foraging effort indices.ResultsHunting lowres time, which is the total time spent in decreased vertical velocity segments of the dive, was the foraging effort index that best correlated with hunting highres time. Hunting highres mode of SES dives (highly sinuous parts of high-resolution dives) was associated with 77 % of total PrCA. In comparison, Hunting lowres segments of SES dives were associated with 68 % of PrCA as well as with four times more PrCA than transit lowres segments.ConclusionWe found a low-resolution index which indicates foraging activity within a highly summarised dive profile and which identified most PrCA, despite degraded information transmitted by SLDRs. Used in combination with other measurements of the in situ environment, the hunting lowres index could ...