fishing in the dark a pursuit-diving seabird modifies foraging behaviour in response to nocturnal light levels钓鱼在黑暗中pursuit-diving海鸟修改觅食行为以应对夜间光水平.pdfVIP

Fishing in the Dark: A Pursuit-Diving Seabird Modifies Foraging Behaviour in Response to Nocturnal Light Levels Paul M. Regular*, April Hedd, William A. Montevecchi Cognitive and Behavioural Ecology Program, Psychology Department, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada Abstract Visual predators tend not to hunt during periods when efficiency is compromised by low light levels. Yet common murres, a species considered a diurnal visual predator, frequently dive at night. To study foraging of murres under different light conditions, we used a combination of archival tagging methods and astronomical models to assess relationships between diving behaviour and light availability. During diurnal and crepuscular periods, murres used a wide range of the water column (2–177 m), foraging across light intensities that spanned several orders of magnitude (103–10210 Wm22). Through these periods, they readily dived under conditions equivalent to ambient moonlight (,1024 Wm22) but rarely under conditions equivalent to starlight (,1028 Wm22). At night, murres readily foraged during both moonlit and starlit periods, and diving depth and efficiency increased with nocturnal light intensity, suggesting that night diving is at least partially visually guided. Whether visually guided foraging is possible during starlit periods is less clear. Given the dense prey landscape available, random-walk simulations suggest that murres could benefit from random prey encounters. We hypothesise that murres foraging through starlit periods rely either on close-range visual or possibly nonvisual cues to acquire randomly encountered prey. This research highlights the flexibility of breeding common murres and raises quest