Prey preferences among the community of deep-diving odontocetes from the Bay of Biscay, Northeast Atlantic

Abstract

Long-finned pilot whales ( Globicephala melas), Risso's dolphins ( Grampus griseus), melon-headed whales ( Peponocephala electra), Cuvier's beaked whales ( Ziphius cavirostris), Sowerby's beaked whales ( Mesoplodon bidens), northern bottlenose whales ( Hyperoodon ampullatus), sperm whales ( Physeter macrocephalus), dwarf sperm whales ( Kogia sima) and pygmy sperm whales ( Kogia breviceps) make up the large community of deep-diving odontocetes occurring off the Bay of Biscay, northeast Atlantic. The ecology of these toothed cetaceans is poorly documented worldwide. The present study described their prey preferences from stomach content analysis and showed resource partitioning within the assemblage. The majority of the species appeared to be mostly teutophageous. Fish was an important food source only for the Sowerby's beaked whale and, to a lesser extent, for the long-finned pilot whale. In terms of foraging habitats inferred from prey composition, either pelagic oceanic or demersal neritic habitats were exploited by toothed whales in the Bay of Biscay, with only the long-finned pilot whale foraging in the two habitats. Finally, with more than 14,000 identified cephalopods from 39 species, the present study highlighted also the poorly known deep-sea cephalopod community off the Bay of Biscay using top predators as biological samplers.