Editor's Choice: Consistent foraging strategies in individual seabirds
Submitted by Johan on 23 September 2015.
Get the paper! New tracking techniques have opened up possibilities to record individuals on repeated foraging flights and investigate to what degree they show individuality in their behaviour.
This study is an elegant demonstration of individual foraging strategies with respect to the use of fisheries discards among a breeding population of gannets in Wales. The study is based on data from bird-borne GPS loggers and time depth recorders in combination with data from a vessel monitoring system, making it possible to decide if the birds forage in the vicinity of fishing vessels or not (verified by bird-borne cameras).
The results revealed a highly significant effect of individual as explanatory factor for foraging close to fishing vessel or not, corresponding to a high degree of repeatability in the individual birds’ foraging strategy (using fishing discards or not).
It remains to be understood if the individual foraging specializations were temporary rather than having evolved from different genetically controlled strategies, considering the long life expectancy of gannets and known cases of diet shifts by individuals.
New tracking techniques have opened up possibilities to record individuals on repeated foraging flights and investigate to what degree they show individuality in their behaviour.
Thomas Alerstam, Editor in Chief
You can access the full paper for free for a limited time: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jav.00660/full
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