ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2018
Mesoscale activity facilitates energy gain in a top predator.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- Current-following behaviour during maiden foraging trips predicts survival in naive marine mammals.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Ecological contexts of diving behavior in Hawaiian false killer whales.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Overcoming the pitfalls of categorizing continuous variables in ecology, evolution and behaviour.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Submesoscale coupling of krill and whales revealed by aggregative Lagrangian coherent structures.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Linking vertical movements of large pelagic predators with distribution patterns of biomass in the open ocean.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- An ocean front dataset for the Mediterranean sea and southwest Indian ocean.Scientific data · 2023Article
- Surface and subsurface oceanographic features drive forage fish distributions and aggregations: Implications for prey availability to top predators in the US Northeast Shelf ecosystem.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Divergent migration routes reveal contrasting energy-minimization strategies to deal with differing resource predictability.Movement ecology · 2023Article
- Blue whales increase feeding rates at fine-scale ocean features.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Fine-scale structures as spots of increased fish concentration in the open ocean.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Forced into an ecological corner: Round-the-clock deep foraging on small prey by elephant seals.Science advances · 2021Article
- A bird's-eye view on turbulence: seabird foraging associations with evolving surface flow features.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Sex-specific variation in the use of vertical habitat by a resident Antarctic top predator.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- High mortality rates in a juvenile free-ranging marine predator and links to dive and forage ability.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Optimizing the use of biologgers for movement ecology research.The Journal of animal ecology · 2020Article
- Environmental heterogeneity decreases reproductive success via effects on foraging behaviour.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Body condition influences ontogeny of foraging behavior in juvenile southern elephant seals.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Localised anthropogenic wake generates a predictable foraging hotspot for top predators.Communications biology · 2019Article
- Mesoscale activity facilitates energy gain in a top predator.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2018Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
How animal movement decisions interact with the distribution of resources to shape individual performance is a key question in ecology. However, links between spatial and behavioural ecology and fitness consequences are poorly understood because the outcomes of individual resource selection decisions, such as energy intake, are rarely measured. In the open ocean, mesoscale features (approx. 10-100 km) such as fronts and eddies can aggregate prey and thereby drive the distribution of foraging vertebrates through bottom-up biophysical coupling. These productive features are known to attract predators, yet their role in facilitating energy transfer to top-level consumers is opaque. We investigated the use of mesoscale features by migrating northern elephant seals and quantified the corresponding energetic gains from the seals' foraging patterns at a daily resolution. Migrating elephant seals modified their diving behaviour and selected for mesoscale features when foraging. Daily energy gain increased significantly with increasing mesoscale activity, indicating that the physical environment can influence predator fitness at fine temporal scales. Results show that areas of high mesoscale activity not only attract top predators as foraging hotspots, but also lead to increased energy transfer across trophic levels. Our study provides evidence that the physical environment is an important factor in controlling energy flow to top predators by setting the stage for variation in resource availability. Such understanding is critical for assessing how changes in the environment and resource distribution will affect individual fitness and food web dynamics.
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