Stedt Johanna, Hamel Héloïse, Torres Ortiz Sara, Højer Kristensen Jakob, Wahlberg Magnus
Department of Biology Lund University Lund Sweden.
Department of Biology University of Southern Denmark Odense Denmark.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Dec 4;14(12):e70671. doi: 10.1002/ece3.70671. eCollection 2024 Dec.
Opportunistic mobile predators can adapt their behaviour to specific foraging scenarios, allowing them to target diverse prey resources. An interesting example is the harbour porpoise (), a marine mammal with a huge energy demand feeding on a large variety of fish, squid and shrimps. Little is known about the foraging behaviour of harbour porpoises, as observations of wild specimens are notoriously difficult to obtain. In this study, foraging was identified in almost 60% of videos from UAV recordings in Danish coastal waters during daylight hours. Observations reveal them to be flexible predators, foraging on both single fish and schools of fish, as well as individually and in groups of varying sizes. We argue that some of the observed behavioural adaptations and context-dependent strategies for prey capture are based on information transfer and social learning. Our results provide unprecedented insights into the foraging behaviour of an opportunistic mammalian predator. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of porpoises having access to coastal areas for energy acquisition, where they are in conflict with anthropogenic disturbances such as fisheries with the risk of bycatch.
机会主义移动捕食者可以根据特定的觅食场景调整其行为，从而使它们能够瞄准各种猎物资源。一个有趣的例子是港湾鼠海豚，这是一种海洋哺乳动物，能量需求巨大，以各种各样的鱼类、鱿鱼和虾类为食。由于很难获得野生样本的观察数据，人们对港湾鼠海豚的觅食行为知之甚少。在这项研究中，在白天丹麦沿海水域的无人机录像中，近60%的视频中都发现了觅食行为。观察结果表明它们是灵活的捕食者，既捕食单条鱼，也捕食鱼群，既单独捕食，也以不同规模的群体捕食。我们认为，观察到的一些行为适应和依赖情境的猎物捕获策略是基于信息传递和社会学习的。我们的研究结果为机会主义哺乳动物捕食者的觅食行为提供了前所未有的见解。此外，这项研究强调了鼠海豚进入沿海地区获取能量的重要性，在这些地区它们与渔业等人为干扰存在冲突，面临误捕的风险。
