Environmentally-Mediated Flexible Foraging Strategies in Brown Boobies in the Gulf of California

Abstract

The Brown Booby Sula leucogaster is a seabird with a pantropical distribution across a wide variety of oceanic environments. Sexual size dimorphism in Brown Boobies has been proposed as an explanation for intersexual differences in foraging, but results have been inconsistent. We investigated whether there is context-dependent foraging behaviour driven by local environmental conditions. In this study, we evaluated (1) inter-sex differences in foraging behaviour (by capillary tubes, temperature and depth recorders, and diet) at two colonies in the Gulf of California: Isla San Jorge (ISJ) and Farallon de San Ignacio (FSI) and, (2) intercolonial and interannual differences in foraging behaviour, and (at ISJ) their relationship with local-scale environmental variation, using 5-day composite images of sea surface temperature (SST) and primary productivity (PP) as proxies. Inter-sex differences were few and inconsistent between years, and smaller than overall differences between years and localities. At ISJ, Br...