Section: Ecology
Topic: Ecology
The challenges of independence: ontogeny of at-sea behaviour in a long-lived seabird
10.24072/pcjournal.386 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 4 (2024), article no. e30.
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The transition to independent foraging represents an important developmental stage in the life cycle of most vertebrate animals. Juveniles differ from adults in various life history traits and tend to survive less well than adults in most long-lived animals. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain higher mortality including that of inadequate/inferior foraging skills compared to adults, young naïve individuals combining lack of experience and physical immaturity. Thus a change in behaviour, resulting in an improvement of skills acquired from growing experience, is expected to occur during a period of learning through the immaturity phase. Very few studies have investigated the ontogeny of foraging behaviour over long periods of time, particularly in long-lived pelagic seabirds, due to the difficulty of obtaining individual tracking data over several years. We investigated the foraging behaviour, through activity patterns, during the three life stages of the endangered Amsterdam albatross by using miniaturized activity loggers on naïve juveniles, immatures and adults. Naïve juveniles during their first month at sea after leaving their colony exhibited lower foraging effort (greater proportion of time spent sitting on water, longer and more numerous bouts on water, shorter and fewer flying bouts). Patterns of activity parameters in juveniles after independence suggested a progressive change of foraging performances during the first two months after fledging. We found sex differences in activity parameters according to time since departure from the colony and month of the year, consistent with the important sexual dimorphism in the Amsterdam albatross. Regardless of life stage considered, activity parameters exhibited temporal variability reflecting the modulation of foraging behaviour. This variability is discussed in light of both extrinsic (i.e. environmental conditions such as variability in food resources or in wind) and intrinsic (i.e. energetic demands linked to plumage renew during moult) factors.
Type: Research article
CC-BY 4.0
@article{10_24072_pcjournal_386,
author = {Delord, Karine and Weimerskirch, Henri and Barbraud, Christophe},
title = {The challenges of independence: ontogeny of at-sea behaviour in a long-lived seabird},
journal = {Peer Community Journal},
eid = {e30},
publisher = {Peer Community In},
volume = {4},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.24072/pcjournal.386},
language = {en},
url = {https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.386/}
}
TY - JOUR AU - Delord, Karine AU - Weimerskirch, Henri AU - Barbraud, Christophe TI - The challenges of independence: ontogeny of at-sea behaviour in a long-lived seabird JO - Peer Community Journal PY - 2024 VL - 4 PB - Peer Community In UR - https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.386/ DO - 10.24072/pcjournal.386 LA - en ID - 10_24072_pcjournal_386 ER -
%0 Journal Article %A Delord, Karine %A Weimerskirch, Henri %A Barbraud, Christophe %T The challenges of independence: ontogeny of at-sea behaviour in a long-lived seabird %J Peer Community Journal %D 2024 %V 4 %I Peer Community In %U https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.386/ %R 10.24072/pcjournal.386 %G en %F 10_24072_pcjournal_386
Delord, Karine; Weimerskirch, Henri; Barbraud, Christophe. The challenges of independence: ontogeny of at-sea behaviour in a long-lived seabird. Peer Community Journal, Volume 4 (2024), article no. e30. doi : 10.24072/pcjournal.386. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.386/
Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI : 10.24072/pci.ecology.100405
Conflict of interest of the recommender and peer reviewers:
The recommender in charge of the evaluation of the article and the reviewers declared that they have no conflict of interest (as defined in the code of conduct of PCI) with the authors or with the content of the article.
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