Abstract
AbstractTime allocation to different activities and habitats enables individuals to modulate their perceived risks and access to resources and can reveal important trade‐offs between fitness‐enhancing activities (e.g., feeding vs. social behavior). Species with long reproductive cycles and high parental investment, such as marine mammals, rely on such behavioral plasticity to cope with rapid environmental change, including anthropogenic stressors. We quantified activity budgets of free‐ranging long‐finned pilot whales in order to assess individual time trade‐offs between foraging and other behaviors in different individual and ecological contexts, and during experimental sound exposures. The experiments included 1–2 and 6–7 kHz naval sonar exposures (a potential anthropogenic stressor), playback of killer whale (a potential predator/competitor) vocalizations, and negative controls. We combined multiple time series data from digital acoustic recording tags (DTAG) as well as group‐level social behavior data from visual observations of tagged whales at the surface. The data were classified into near‐surface behaviors and dive types (using a hidden Markov model for dive transitions) and aggregated into time budgets. On average, individuals (N = 19) spent most of their time (69%) resting and transiting near surface, 21% in shallow dives (depth <40 m), and only 10% of their time in deep foraging dives, of which 65% reached a depth 10 m from the sea bottom. Individuals in the largest of three body size classes or accompanied by calves tended to spend more time foraging than others. Simultaneous tagging of pairs of individuals showed that up to 50% of the activity budget was synchronized between conspecifics with decreased synchrony during foraging periods. Individuals spent less time foraging when forming larger non‐vocal aggregations of individuals in late afternoons, and more time foraging when in the mid‐range of water depths (300–400 m) available in the study area (50–700 m). Individuals reduced foraging time by 83% (29–96%) during their first exposure to sonar, but not during killer whale sound playbacks. A relative increase in foraging during repeat sonar exposures indicated habituation or change in response tactic. We discuss the possible adaptive value of these trade‐offs in time allocation to reduce individual conflict while maintaining benefits of group living.
Highlights
Animals have evolved behavioral response and learning strategies to cope with both stable and variable aspects of their environment
Data In total, 19 tag records were analyzed; 15 of 19 tagged whales were exposed to naval sonar and/or control sound playbacks
We identified four different dive types in longfinned pilot whales: active and mostly deep foraging dives (“Foraging”), less active and shallow dives that contained echolocation clicks indicating foraging/exploratory behavior (“Exploratory”), non-foraging dives associated with large group sizes and lack of vocalizations (“Crowded”), and very short dives that exhibited high directionality (“Directed”)
Summary
Animals have evolved behavioral response and learning strategies to cope with both stable and variable aspects of their environment. For behavioral responses to be adaptive, individuals must assess the cost–benefit of behavioral change against perceived risk and opportunity in their individual (e.g., body condition, age), social (e.g., group size), and environmental (e.g., resource quality, location) contexts. Human-induced rapid environmental change, such as noise pollution, may further increase this uncertainty (Sih 2013) and, similar to predation risk (Frid and Dill 2002), may influence an individual’s cost–benefit assessment and subsequent investment of time and energy in different behavioral options. With the development of animal-borne data loggers, there has been increasing scope to measure such costs for free-ranging animals where individual behavior can be linked to realistic environmental contexts (e.g., prey availability; Friedlaender et al 2016) and directly contributing to conservation science
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