Environmental heterogeneity amplifies behavioural response to a temporal cycle

Trevail, Alice M.; Green, Jonathan A.; Sharples, Jonathan; Polton, Jeff A.; Arnould, John P. Y.; Patrick, Samantha C.

doi:10.1111/oik.05579

Cited by 18 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…We used the Viterbi algorithm to estimate the most likely sequence of states to have generated the observed movement patterns (Zucchini, MacDonald, & Langrock, 2016). A three-state model was supported by model selection using AIC, and the three states and their interpretation are consistent with other kittiwake-tracking studies (Chivers et al, 2012;Trevail et al, 2019). Consecutive sequences of foraging points were aggregated into foraging sites and were represented by a single pair of central coordinates (Appendix S5).…”

Section: Gps Trackingmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…into an observed sequence of discrete behavioural states. Hidden Markov models were fitted using the moveHMM function from the movehmm package (Michelot, Langrock, & Patterson, 2016), which we provided with starting parameters informed by previous work using HMMs to describe kittiwake foraging behaviour (Trevail et al, 2019;Appendix S5). Based on the distributions of step lengths between GPS points (described by a gamma distribution) and turning angles (described by a von Mises distribution) between consecutive GPS points, HMMs classified each point as one of three behavioural states: foraging, resting or travelling.…”

Section: Gps Trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Personality predicts foraging site fidelity and trip repeatability in a marine predator

Harris

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Sneddon

et al. 2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Animal populations are often comprised of both foraging specialists and generalists. For instance, some individuals show higher foraging site fidelity (spatial specialization) than others. Such individual differences in degree of specialization can persist over time-scales of months or even years in long-lived animals, but the mechanisms leading to these different individual strategies are not fully understood.2. There is accumulating evidence that individual variation in foraging behaviour is shaped by animal personality traits, such as boldness. Despite this, the potential for boldness to drive differences in the degree of specialization is unknown.3. In this study, we used novel object tests to measure boldness in black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) breeding at four colonies in Svalbard and deployed GPS loggers to examine their at-sea foraging behaviour. We estimated the repeatability of foraging trips and used a hidden Markov model to identify locations of foraging sites in order to quantify individual foraging site fidelity. 4. Across the breeding season, bolder birds were more repeatable than shy individuals in the distance and range of their foraging trips, and during the incubation period (but not chick rearing), bolder individuals were more site-faithful. Birds exhibited these differences while showing high spatial similarity in foraging areas, indicating that site selection was not driven by personality-dependent spatial partitioning.5. We instead suggest that a relationship between boldness and site fidelity may be driven by differences in behavioural flexibility between bold and shy individuals.Together, these results provide a potential mechanism by which widely reported individual differences in foraging specialization may emerge. K E Y W O R D Sbiologging, boldness, foraging niche width, foraging specialization, marine vertebrate, movement ecology, personality, site fidelity

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Section: Gps Trackingmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Gps Trackingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality predicts foraging site fidelity and trip repeatability in a marine predator

Harris

Descamps

Sneddon

et al. 2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…body mass at Skomer, Rathlin and Puffin Island: 327.9 ± 5.1 from Trevail et al . [9]). Full details of tracking procedures can be found in the first publications of the data: Wakefield et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, not all heterogeneous environments are equal [9–11], as high-prey locations vary in distribution, predictability and numbers of competing individuals. Studies often present these ‘prey hotspots’ as beneficial resource patches [12–14]; however, the optimality of foraging strategies in response to resource heterogeneity may be constrained by both the nature of resource heterogeneity [15,16] and the behaviour of other foragers [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental heterogeneity decreases reproductive success via effects on foraging behaviour

et al. 2019

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Environmental heterogeneity shapes the uneven distribution of resources available to foragers, and is ubiquitous in nature. Optimal foraging theory predicts that an animal's ability to exploit resource patches is key to foraging success. However, the potential fitness costs and benefits of foraging in a heterogeneous environment are difficult to measure empirically. Heterogeneity may provide higher-quality foraging opportunities, or alternatively could increase the cost of resource acquisition because of reduced patch density or increased competition. Here, we study the influence of physical environmental heterogeneity on behaviour and reproductive success of black-legged kittiwakes, Rissa tridactyla . From GPS tracking data at 15 colonies throughout their British and Irish range, we found that environments that were physically more heterogeneous were associated with longer trip duration, more time spent foraging while away from the colony, increased overlap of foraging areas between individuals and lower breeding success. These results suggest that there is greater competition between individuals for finite resources in more heterogeneous environments, which comes at a cost to reproduction. Resource hotspots are often considered beneficial, as individuals can learn to exploit them if sufficiently predictable. However, we demonstrate here that such fitness gains can be countered by greater competition in more heterogeneous environments.

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“…Given the numerous constraints imposed on Antarctic petrels during the breeding season (e.g. their internal state and that of their mate) and the highly dynamic nature of their foraging habitat (Fauchald et al, 2017), a flexible behaviour might be necessary to cope with a constantly changing, unpredictable environment (Dall, Houston, & McNamara, 2004;Dehnhard et al, 2020;Trevail et al, 2019). There is evidence that Antarctic petrels do not exhibit individual specialization with regard to habitat or environmental conditions while foraging (Dehnhard et al, 2020).…”

Section: Individual Variation In Foraging Tacticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Foraging tactics in dynamic sea‐ice habitats affect individual state in a long‐ranging seabird

et al. 2020

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Individual heterogeneity in diet and foraging behaviour is common in wild animal populations, and can be a strong determinant of how populations respond to environmental changes. Within populations, variation in foraging behaviour and the occurrence of individual tactics in relation to resources distribution can help explain differences in individual fitness, and ultimately identify important factors affecting population dynamics. We examined how foraging behaviour and habitat during the breeding period related to the physiological state of a long‐ranging seabird adapted to sea ice, the Antarctic petrel Thalassoica antarctica. Firstly, using GPS tracking and state‐switching movement modelling (hidden Markov models) on 124 individual birds, we tested for the occurrence of distinct foraging tactics within our study population. Our results highlight a large variation in the movement and foraging behaviour of a very mobile seabird, and delineate distinct foraging tactics along a gradient from foraging in dense pack ice to foraging in open water. Secondly, we investigated the effects of these foraging tactics on individual state at return from a foraging trip. We combined movement data with morphometric and physiological measurements of a suite of plasma metabolites that provided a general picture of a bird's individual state. Foraging in denser sea ice was associated with lower gain in body mass during brooding, as well as lower level of energy acquisition (plasma triacylglycerol) during both brooding and incubation. We found no clear relationship between the foraging tactic in relation to sea ice and the energetic stress (changes in plasma corticosterone), energetic balance (β‐hydroxybutyrate) or trophic level (δ15N). However, a shorter foraging range was related to both the energetic balance (positively) and the trophic level (negatively). Our results highlight a diverse range of foraging tactics in relation to sea ice in Antarctic petrels. While the various foraging tactics do not seem to strongly alter energetic balance, they may affect other aspects of Antarctic petrels' physiology. Future changes in sea‐ice habitats can thus be expected to have an impact on the individual state of seabirds such as Antarctic petrels, which could ultimately affect their population dynamics. Nonetheless, strong individual heterogeneity in the use of sea‐ice habitats by a typical pagophilic species might strengthen its resilience to environmental changes and in particular to forecasted sea‐ice loss. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

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Environmental heterogeneity amplifies behavioural response to a temporal cycle

Cited by 18 publications

References 62 publications

Personality predicts foraging site fidelity and trip repeatability in a marine predator

Personality predicts foraging site fidelity and trip repeatability in a marine predator

Environmental heterogeneity decreases reproductive success via effects on foraging behaviour

Foraging tactics in dynamic sea‐ice habitats affect individual state in a long‐ranging seabird

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