Fisheries, Aquaculture and Coasts Centre, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2013;3:1471. doi: 10.1038/srep01471.
Quantifying the energy requirements of animals in nature is critical for understanding physiological, behavioural, and ecosystem ecology; however, for difficult-to-study species such as large sharks, prey intake rates are largely unknown. Here, we use metabolic rates derived from swimming speed estimates to suggest that feeding requirements of the world's largest predatory fish, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), are several times higher than previously proposed. Further, our estimates of feeding frequency identify a clear benefit in seasonal selection of pinniped colonies - a white shark foraging strategy seen across much of their range.
量化自然界中动物的能量需求对于理解生理、行为和生态系统生态学至关重要；然而，对于大型鲨鱼等难以研究的物种，其猎物摄入量在很大程度上是未知的。在这里，我们使用从游泳速度估计中得出的代谢率来表明，世界上最大的掠食性鱼类——大白鲨（Carcharodon carcharias）的摄食需求比之前提出的要高出数倍。此外，我们对摄食频率的估计表明，在季节性选择鳍足类动物聚居地方面存在明显的好处——这是大白鲨在其大部分分布范围内采用的一种觅食策略。
