@article{277a2decfc8146da8b61609064b246cb,
title = "Foraging rates of ram-filtering North Atlantic right whales",
abstract = "North Atlantic right whales spend their summer months foraging primarily in American and Canadian Atlantic waters on high-energy-density prey. Here, they rapidly accumulate and store energy obtained within a few months to support future migrations and reproduction while fasting. High drag from their ram-filter foraging strategy places a limit on what prey densities will be energetically efficient to target. Our understanding of the volume of prey-laden water filtered by right whales during a dive or foraging bout, and what information they use to decide to forage or not, has been limited by the difficulties of measuring when they feed at depth, how fast they swim during continuous ram filtration and how often they might swallow accumulated prey. We used 10 DTAG deployments from right whales in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, to quantify swimming speeds and estimate the volume of prey-laden water filtered per dive. We used the tag's inertial sensors to evaluate the timing of frequent biomechanical changes that likely indicate the truncation of continuous filtration, and whether the number or timing of these fluking bouts relates to longer feeding dives or other foraging decisions. During foraging dives, right whales descended at 1.4 (±0.2 SD) m/s and slowed to swim at 1.1 (±0.3) m/s while filtering. We found consistent pauses in the fluking behaviour of foraging right whales, every 56 (±22) s. Whales filtered on average 78 (±30) m3 of water per fluking bout and on average 673 (±201) m3per dive. Right whales filter large volumes of water at low speeds with a high duty cycle, but require sufficiently high prey energy densities to compensate for a high-drag foraging strategy. Closely related bowhead whales have a larger gape but swim more slowly, filtering greater volumes with lower drag. Our findings highlight that right whales acquire their energy in a relatively short period of intense foraging; even moderate changes in their feeding behaviour or their prey energy density are likely to negatively impact their yearly energy budgets and therefore reduce fitness substantially. A plain language summary is available for this article.",
keywords = "biomechanics, drag, filter feeding, foraging, ram filtration, right whale",
author = "{van der Hoop}, {Julie Marie} and Nousek-McGregor, {Anna E.} and Nowacek, {Douglas P.} and Parks, {Susan E.} and Peter Tyack and Madsen, {Peter Teglberg}",
note = "Funding Information: Marie Sklodowska‐Curie Individual Fellowship; Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, Grant/ Award Number: HR09011; Office of Naval Research, Grant/Award Number: N000140410709; NOAA Fisheries' North Atlantic Right Whale Grant Program, Grant/ Award Number: NA04NMF4720405; Funding Information: We acknowledge the field efforts of many over the years to collect these tag data. We thank Mark Johnson for tag and analysis tool development and for providing helpful feedback, including on previous versions of this manuscript. We are grateful for conversations with Alex Werth, Jean Potvin, Marilyn Marx and Michael Moore, as well as very helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers. Carolyn Miller and Wayne Perryman provided head and body width and body length measurements. Funding for tag deployments was provided by the Office of Naval Research N000140410709 and the NOAA Fisheries' North Atlantic Right Whale Grant Program NA04NMF4720405. Tag data were collected in the United States and Canada under NMFS permit #14791. JVDH received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk{\l}odowska‐Curie Individual Fellowship Grant Agreement No. 706867. PLT acknowledges the support of the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) in the completion of this study. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions. This work is dedicated in memory of Jerry Conway of Canada{\textquoteright}s DFO and Canadian Whale Institute, who was instrumental in facilitating right whale research in the Bay of Fundy. Funding Information: We acknowledge the field efforts of many over the years to collect these tag data. We thank Mark Johnson for tag and analysis tool development and for providing helpful feedback, including on previous versions of this manuscript. We are grateful for conversations with Alex Werth, Jean Potvin, Marilyn Marx and Michael Moore, as well as very helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers. Carolyn Miller and Wayne Perryman?provided head and body width?and body length measurements. Funding for tag deployments was provided by the Office of Naval Research N000140410709 and the NOAA Fisheries' North Atlantic Right Whale Grant Program NA04NMF4720405. Tag data were collected in the United States and Canada under NMFS permit #14791. JVDH received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Individual Fellowship Grant Agreement No. 706867. PLT acknowledges the support of the MASTS pooling initiative (The Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland) in the completion of this study. MASTS is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011) and contributing institutions.?This work is dedicated in memory of?Jerry Conway of Canada's DFO?and Canadian Whale Institute, who was instrumental in facilitating right whale research in the Bay of Fundy. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 The Authors. Functional Ecology {\textcopyright} 2019 British Ecological Society",
year = "2019",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1111/1365-2435.13357",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "33",
pages = "1290--1306",
journal = "Functional Ecology",
issn = "0269-8463",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "7",
}