Blawas Ashley M, Videsen Simone K A, Cade David E, Calambokidis John, Friedlaender Ari S, Johnston David W, Madsen Peter T, Goldbogen Jeremy A
Hopkins Marine Station, Oceans Department, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA, USA.
Zoophysiology, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Sci Adv. 2025 Aug 8;11(32):eadw2232. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adw2232. Epub 2025 Aug 6.
The hypothesized impacts of whale foraging on ocean productivity are ultimately defined by their metabolic rate, but determining energy expenditure for ocean giants remains challenging. The largest baleen whales use a high-drag lunge-feeding strategy that is hypothesized to come at a high energetic cost, thus requiring exceptional calorie intake. We used biologging tags to measure respiratory rates in foraging rorquals and demonstrate that their field metabolic rates are less than half that predicted by prey consumption estimates and by scaling predictions from smaller marine mammals. The relative cost of rorqual foraging decreases with increasing size as larger whales spend disproportionately longer time filtering prey from engulfed water. By decoupling active swimming and filtration, the largest rorquals forage with limited movement costs. The evolution of lunge feeding confers an energetic advantage that is unique among filter feeders and may have provided an evolutionary pathway to the largest body sizes.
鲸鱼觅食对海洋生产力的假定影响最终由其代谢率决定，但确定这些海洋巨兽的能量消耗仍然具有挑战性。最大的须鲸采用高阻力的冲刺式捕食策略，据推测这需要高昂的能量成本，因此需要摄入大量卡路里。我们使用生物记录标签来测量觅食的须鲸的呼吸速率，并证明它们的野外代谢率不到根据猎物消耗估计和小型海洋哺乳动物的比例预测所计算出的代谢率的一半。须鲸觅食的相对成本随着体型的增大而降低，因为体型较大的鲸鱼从吞食的水中过滤猎物所花费的时间比例更长。通过将主动游泳和过滤分开，最大的须鲸以有限的运动成本进行觅食。冲刺式捕食的进化赋予了一种能量优势，这在滤食性动物中是独一无二的，并且可能为最大体型的进化提供了一条途径。
