Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire, LA1 4YQ, UK.
The Lyell Centre, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Lothian, EH14 4BA, UK.
J Exp Biol. 2023 Dec 15;226(24). doi: 10.1242/jeb.246754. Epub 2023 Dec 18.
Energetics can provide novel insights into the roles of animals, but employing an energetics approach has traditionally required extensive empirical physiological data on the focal species, something that can be challenging for those that inhabit marine environments. There is therefore a demand for a framework through which to estimate energy expenditure from readily available data. We present the energetic costs associated with important time- and energy-intensive behaviours across nine families of marine bird (including seabirds, ducks, divers and grebes) and nine ecological guilds. We demonstrate a worked example, calculating the year-round energetic expenditure of the great auk, Pinguinus impennis, under three migration scenarios, thereby illustrating the capacity of this approach to make predictions for data-deficient species. We provide a comprehensive framework through which to model marine bird energetics and demonstrate the power of this approach to provide novel, quantitative insights into the influence of marine birds within their ecosystems.
能量学可以为动物的角色提供新的见解，但采用能量学方法传统上需要对焦点物种进行广泛的经验生理学数据，对于那些栖息在海洋环境中的物种来说，这可能具有挑战性。因此，需要有一种框架，可以根据现成的数据来估计能量消耗。我们提出了与海洋鸟类九个科（包括海鸟、鸭、潜水鸟和䴙䴘）和九个生态类群中重要的耗时和耗能行为相关的能量成本。我们展示了一个实例，计算了三种迁徙情景下大海雀（Pinguinus impennis）全年的能量消耗，从而说明了这种方法对数据不足物种进行预测的能力。我们提供了一个全面的框架来模拟海洋鸟类的能量学，并展示了这种方法的力量，为海洋鸟类在其生态系统中的影响提供新的、定量的见解。
