ArticleScience advances2024
Low hunting costs in an expensive marine mammal predator.
Article in Science advances, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evidence of predation events by marine mammals at offshore wind farms.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Intraspecific variation in prey quality affects the consumption rates of top predators.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Transcriptomic insights into the immune responses of the lung and muscle of non-healthy harbor porpoises (Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- Spatial Dynamics of Harbour PorpoiseEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Harbour Porpoises Are Flexible Predators Displaying Context-Dependent Foraging Behaviours.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Current species protection does not serve its porpoise-Knowledge gaps on the impact of pressures on the Critically Endangered Baltic Proper harbour porpoise population, and future recommendations for its protection.Ecology and evolution · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many large terrestrial mammalian predators use energy-intensive, high-risk, high-gain strategies to pursue large, high-quality prey. However, similar-sized marine mammal predators with even higher field metabolic rates (FMRs) consistently target prey three to six orders of magnitude smaller than themselves. Here, we address the question of how these active and expensive marine mammal predators can gain sufficient energy from consistently targeting small prey during breath-hold dives. Using harbor porpoises as model organisms, we show that hunting small aquatic prey is energetically cheap (<20% increase in FMR) for these marine predators, but it requires them to spend a large proportion (>60%) of time foraging. We conclude that this grazing foraging strategy on small prey is viable for marine mammal predators despite their high FMR because they can hunt near continuously at low marginal expense. Consequently, cessation of foraging due to human disturbance comes at a high cost, as porpoises must maintain their high thermoregulation costs with a reduced energy intake.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.