Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic

In this work we investigated the between-colony spatial, behavioural and trophic segregation of two sub-populations of the elusive Macaronesian shearwaters Puffinus baroli breeding only ~340 km apart in Cima Islet (Porto Santo Island) and Selvagem Grande Island. Global location sensing (gls) loggers...

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Main Authors:	Paiva, Vitor H., Fagundes, Ana I., Romão, Vera, Gouveia, Cátia, Ramos, Jaime A.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803222/

id	pubmed-4803222
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-48032222016-03-25 Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic Paiva, Vitor H. Fagundes, Ana I. Romão, Vera Gouveia, Cátia Ramos, Jaime A. Research Article In this work we investigated the between-colony spatial, behavioural and trophic segregation of two sub-populations of the elusive Macaronesian shearwaters Puffinus baroli breeding only ~340 km apart in Cima Islet (Porto Santo Island) and Selvagem Grande Island. Global location sensing (gls) loggers were used in combination with the trophic ecology of tracked individuals, inferred from the isotopic signatures of wing feathers. Results suggest that these two Macaronesian shearwater sub-populations do segregate during the non-breeding period in some ‘sub-population-specific’ regions, by responding to different oceanographic characteristics (habitat modelling). Within these disparate areas, both sub-populations behave differently (at-sea activity) and prey on disparate trophic niches (stable isotope analysis). One hypothesis would be that each sub-population have evolved and adapted to feed on particular and ‘sub-population-specific’ resources, and the segregation observed at the three different levels (spatial, behavioural and trophic) might be in fact a result of such adaptation, from the emergence of ‘cultural foraging patterns’. Finally, when comparing to the results of former studies reporting on the spatial, behavioural and trophic choices of Macaronesian shearwater populations breeding on Azores and Canary Islands, we realized the high ecological plasticity of this species inhabiting and foraging over the North-East Atlantic Ocean. Public Library of Science 2016-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4803222/ /pubmed/27003687 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151340 Text en © 2016 Paiva et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Paiva, Vitor H. Fagundes, Ana I. Romão, Vera Gouveia, Cátia Ramos, Jaime A.
spellingShingle	Paiva, Vitor H. Fagundes, Ana I. Romão, Vera Gouveia, Cátia Ramos, Jaime A. Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
author_facet	Paiva, Vitor H. Fagundes, Ana I. Romão, Vera Gouveia, Cátia Ramos, Jaime A.
author_sort	Paiva, Vitor H.
title	Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
title_short	Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
title_full	Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
title_fullStr	Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
title_full_unstemmed	Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic
title_sort	population-scale foraging segregation in an apex predator of the north atlantic
description	In this work we investigated the between-colony spatial, behavioural and trophic segregation of two sub-populations of the elusive Macaronesian shearwaters Puffinus baroli breeding only ~340 km apart in Cima Islet (Porto Santo Island) and Selvagem Grande Island. Global location sensing (gls) loggers were used in combination with the trophic ecology of tracked individuals, inferred from the isotopic signatures of wing feathers. Results suggest that these two Macaronesian shearwater sub-populations do segregate during the non-breeding period in some ‘sub-population-specific’ regions, by responding to different oceanographic characteristics (habitat modelling). Within these disparate areas, both sub-populations behave differently (at-sea activity) and prey on disparate trophic niches (stable isotope analysis). One hypothesis would be that each sub-population have evolved and adapted to feed on particular and ‘sub-population-specific’ resources, and the segregation observed at the three different levels (spatial, behavioural and trophic) might be in fact a result of such adaptation, from the emergence of ‘cultural foraging patterns’. Finally, when comparing to the results of former studies reporting on the spatial, behavioural and trophic choices of Macaronesian shearwater populations breeding on Azores and Canary Islands, we realized the high ecological plasticity of this species inhabiting and foraging over the North-East Atlantic Ocean.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803222/
_version_	1613556258009251840

Population-Scale Foraging Segregation in an Apex Predator of the North Atlantic

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