Abstract
Prey distribution, patch size, and the presence of conspecifics are important factors influencing a predator’s feeding tactics, including the decision to feed individually or socially. Little is known about group behaviour in seabirds as they spend most of their lives in the marine environment where it is difficult to observe their foraging activities. In this study, we report on at-sea foraging associations of little penguins (Eudyptula minor) during the breeding season. Individuals could be categorised as (1) not associating; (2) associating when departing from and/or returning to the colony; or (3) at sea when travelling, diving or performing synchronised dives. Out of 84 separate foraging tracks, 58 (69.0%) involved associations with conspecifics. Furthermore, in a total of 39 (46.4%), individuals were found to dive during association and in 32 (38.1%), individuals were found to exhibit synchronous diving. These behaviours suggest little penguins forage in groups, could synchronise their underwater movements and potentially cooperate to concentrate their small schooling prey.
Highlights
Locating and exploiting resources is a constant challenge for animals
The results indicate that in little penguins, even while a relatively small proportion of the colony was concurrently tracked, a large proportion of instrumented individuals associated with a conspecific during a foraging trip
This suggests that little penguins are unlikely to forage individually and that group association occurs in this species, as has been previously described for other penguin species [6,7,26]
Summary
Locating and exploiting resources is a constant challenge for animals It is a time when cooperative strategies can greatly improve the probability of being successful. Breeding seabirds are central place foragers [1] and show specific adaptations to the difficulties encountered in finding food within the sparseness and patchiness of the marine environment they exploit [2] In such an environment, group foraging could benefit individuals by increasing their efficiency at finding resources, increasing their feeding rate in comparison to solitary foragers, and may assist in the acquisition of food by concentrating small prey or by facilitating the capture of large prey [3]. No studies have yet concurrently used depth recorders and GPS data loggers for a whole foraging trip to examine fine-scale spatial overlap in time and coordinated diving behaviour indicative of group foraging
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