When ambient sound levels were highest, more time was spent in the directed, goal-oriented behavior of feeding,
whereas less time was spent engaged in undirected behavior such as milling. This work illustrates how shifts in activity of individual manatees may be useful parameters for identifying impacts of noise on manatees and might inform population level effects. “
“There is little previous information on feeding habits of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) in the northeast Atlantic. The present study analyzed stomach contents of pilot whales stranded in Portugal (n = 6), Galicia (northwest Spain) (n = 32), and Scotland (United Kingdom) (n = 10), selleck chemicals from 1990 to 2011. These animals ranged from 213 to 555 cm in length (24 females, 19 males and 5 of unknown sex). The main prey identified were cephalopods of the families Octopodidae and Ommastrephidae, the former being numerically more important in Iberia (Portugal and Galicia) and the latter more important in Scotland, with Iberian whales also showing a more diverse diet. Multivariate analysis revealed evidence of geographical and seasonal variation in diet. Generalized Additive Modeling results indicated that more octopus (Eledone
cirrhosa) were eaten in Iberia than in Scotland, more in the first half of the year, and more in larger whales. Numbers of ommastrephid squids in the stomach decreased over the study period and varied with season and whale length. This study confirms cephalopods as the main prey http://www.selleckchem.com/products/PD-0325901.html of pilot whales, as previously reported, although our results also suggest that, in the northeast Atlantic, ommastrephid squid are largely replaced as the main prey by octopods at lower latitudes. The long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas), herein after referred to as pilot whale, is one of the largest odontocetes, with maximum length recorded as 625 cm (Bloch et al. 1993). The species is distributed throughout temperate and subarctic
regions of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, being absent from tropical waters (Reid et al. 2003). Although occupying mainly oceanic habitats (Bloch et al. 2003, Macleod Carteolol HCl et al. 2007, Azzellino et al. 2008, De Stephanis et al. 2008a), with most sightings recorded in waters over 2,000 m (Baird et al. 2002), pilot whales can range over the continental shelf and, in Galicia, the species has occasionally been observed during land-based sightings surveys (Pierce et al. 2010a). Several studies have analyzed the stomach contents obtained from pilot whales stranded in different parts of the world (e.g., Desportes and Mouritsen 1993, Gannon et al. 1997, Santos and Haimovici 2001, Pierrepont et al. 2005, Beatson et al. 2007, Beatson and O’Shea 2009, Spitz et al. 2011). In general, these studies have found cephalopods to be the main component of pilot whale diet, although fish may also be important (Overholtz and Waring 1991, Spitz et al. 2011).