Albatrosses can memorize locations of predictable fishing boats but favour natural foraging. Issue 1932 (12th August 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Albatrosses can memorize locations of predictable fishing boats but favour natural foraging. Issue 1932 (12th August 2020)
- Main Title:
- Albatrosses can memorize locations of predictable fishing boats but favour natural foraging
- Authors:
- Collet, Julien
Weimerskirch, Henri - Abstract:
- Abstract : Human activities generate food attracting many animals worldwide, causing major conservation issues. The spatio-temporal predictability of anthropogenic resources could reduce search costs for animals and mediate their attractiveness. We investigated this through GPS tracking in breeding black-browed albatrosses attracted to fishing boats. We tested for answers to the following questions. (i) Can future boat locations be anticipated from cues available to birds? (ii) Are birds able to appropriately use these cues to increase encounters? (iii) How frequently do birds use these cues? Boats were spatially persistent: birds searching in the direction where they previously attended boats would encounter twice as many boats compared with following a random direction strategy. A large proportion of birds did not use this cue: across pairs of consecutive trips ( n = 85), 51% of birds switched their foraging direction irrespective of previous boat encounters. Still, 15 birds (27%) were observed to closely approach (approx. 0.1–1 km) where they previously attended a boat while boats were no longer there. This is less than the distance expected by chance (approx. 10–100 km), based on permutation control procedures accounting for individual-specific spatial consistency, suggesting individuals could memorize where they encountered boats across consecutive trips. We conclude albatrosses were able to exploit predictive cues from recent boat encounters but most favouredAbstract : Human activities generate food attracting many animals worldwide, causing major conservation issues. The spatio-temporal predictability of anthropogenic resources could reduce search costs for animals and mediate their attractiveness. We investigated this through GPS tracking in breeding black-browed albatrosses attracted to fishing boats. We tested for answers to the following questions. (i) Can future boat locations be anticipated from cues available to birds? (ii) Are birds able to appropriately use these cues to increase encounters? (iii) How frequently do birds use these cues? Boats were spatially persistent: birds searching in the direction where they previously attended boats would encounter twice as many boats compared with following a random direction strategy. A large proportion of birds did not use this cue: across pairs of consecutive trips ( n = 85), 51% of birds switched their foraging direction irrespective of previous boat encounters. Still, 15 birds (27%) were observed to closely approach (approx. 0.1–1 km) where they previously attended a boat while boats were no longer there. This is less than the distance expected by chance (approx. 10–100 km), based on permutation control procedures accounting for individual-specific spatial consistency, suggesting individuals could memorize where they encountered boats across consecutive trips. We conclude albatrosses were able to exploit predictive cues from recent boat encounters but most favoured alternative resources. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Proceedings. Volume 287:Issue 1932(2020)
- Journal:
- Proceedings
- Issue:
- Volume 287:Issue 1932(2020)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 287, Issue 1932 (2020)
- Year:
- 2020
- Volume:
- 287
- Issue:
- 1932
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2020-0287-1932-0000
- Page Start:
- Page End:
- Publication Date:
- 2020-08-12
- Subjects:
- albatrosses -- individual consistency -- resource predictability -- fisheries -- anthropogenic food -- cognition in the wild
Biology -- Periodicals
570.5 - Journal URLs:
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rspb ↗
- DOI:
- 10.1098/rspb.2020.0958 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0962-8452
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library STI - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 22467.xml