Options for modulating intra-specific competition in colonial pinnipeds: the case of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Wadden Sea

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1 Laboratory for Animal Movement, Department of Biosciences, College of Science, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom
2 IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany
3 Customized Animal Tracking Solutions, Moffat Beach, QLD 4551, Australia
4 Centro Nacional Patagonico-CONICET, Puerto Madryn (U9120ACD), Chubut, Argentina
5 Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation, Hannover, Germany
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1020v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Ecology, Marine Biology, Statistics
Keywords
pinniped, dive behaviour, sexual segregation, dive duration, swim speed, harbour seal
Copyright
© 2015 Wilson et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Wilson RP, Liebsch N, Gomez-Laich A, Kay WP, Bone A, Hobson VJ, Siebert U. 2015. Options for modulating intra-specific competition in colonial pinnipeds: the case of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) in the Wadden Sea. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1020v1

Abstract

Colonial pinnipeds may be subject to substantial consumptive competition because they are large, slow-moving central place foragers. We examined possible mechanisms for reducing this competition by examining the diving behaviour of harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) after equipping 34 seals (11 females, 23 males) foraging from three locations; Rømø, Denmark and Lorenzenplate and Helgoland, Germany, in the Wadden Sea area with time-depth recorders. Analysis of 319,021 dives revealed little between-colony variation but appreciable inter-sex differences, with males diving deeper than females, but for shorter periods. Males also had higher vertical descent rates. This result suggests that males may have higher overall swim speeds, which would increase higher oxygen consumption, and may explain the shorter dive durations compared to females. Intersex variation in swim speed alone is predicted to lead to fundamental differences in the time use of three-dimensional space, which may help reduce consumptive competition in harbour seals and other colonial pinnipeds.

Author Comment

This version of the manuscript has been accepted for publication at PeerJ.

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