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MEPS 695:1-14 (2022)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14132

FEATURE ARTICLE
Short-finned pilot whales exhibit behavioral plasticity in foraging strategies mediated by their environment

Jeanne M. Shearer1,*, Frants H. Jensen2,3, Nicola J. Quick1, Ari Friedlaender4,5, Brandon Southall1,4,5, Douglas P. Nowacek1,6, Matthew Bowers7, Heather J. Foley1, Zachary T. Swaim1, Danielle M. Waples1, Andrew J. Read1

1Duke University Marine Laboratory, 135 Duke Marine Lab Road, Beaufort, NC 28516, USA
2Syracuse University, 107 College Place, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA
3Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 266 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA
4University of California Santa Cruz, 115 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060, USA
5Southall Environmental Associates, Inc., 9099 Soquel Drive, Aptos, CA 95003, USA
6Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
7Neptune & Company, Inc., 1435 Garrison Street, Lakewood, CO 80215, USA
*Corresponding author:

ABSTRACT: Predators adapt their foraging behavior to exploit a variety of prey in a range of environments. Short-finned pilot whales are wide-ranging predators in tropical and sub-tropical oceans, but most previous studies of their foraging ecology have been conducted near oceanic islands. We deployed sound- and movement-recording tags on 43 short-finned pilot whales off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA, to measure their foraging behavior in a continental shelf-break ecosystem and investigate how variation in the environment shapes their behavior. Overall, the foraging behavior of pilot whales off Cape Hatteras was similar to that of their counterparts from island-associated habitats. Off Cape Hatteras, pilot whales made foraging dives as deep as 1077 m (mean: 445 m), lasting up to 23 min (mean: 12.8 min), with sprints (pursuit at speeds over 3 m s-1 and up to 6.9 m s-1) in more than half of foraging dives. However, tagged whales off Cape Hatteras produced higher buzz rates (11.3 buzzes dive-1), foraged more extensively in daytime hours, and engaged in more frequent benthic foraging than island-associated ecotypes. By parsing the echoic scene generated by the animal’s own echolocation clicks, we show that pilot whales off Cape Hatteras frequently exploit bathymetric features for foraging, with benthic dives resulting in higher prey capture attempts than pelagic dives. The ability of these predators to strategically adapt foraging strategies to local habitat features likely contributes to their ecological success and may allow them to adjust to shifts in prey distributions in a rapidly changing Anthropocene ocean.


KEY WORDS: Short-finned pilot whale · Foraging strategy · Behavioral plasticity · Habitat


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Cite this article as: Shearer JM, Jensen FH, Quick NJ, Friedlaender A and others (2022) Short-finned pilot whales exhibit behavioral plasticity in foraging strategies mediated by their environment. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 695:1-14. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps14132

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