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. 2017 Mar 7;114(10):2628-2633.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1611707114. Epub 2017 Feb 21.

Sustained disruption of narwhal habitat use and behavior in the presence of Arctic killer whales

Affiliations

Sustained disruption of narwhal habitat use and behavior in the presence of Arctic killer whales

Greg A Breed et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Although predators influence behavior of prey, analyses of electronic tracking data in marine environments rarely consider how predators affect the behavior of tracked animals. We collected an unprecedented dataset by synchronously tracking predator (killer whales, [Formula: see text] = 1; representing a family group) and prey (narwhal, [Formula: see text] = 7) via satellite telemetry in Admiralty Inlet, a large fjord in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. Analyzing the movement data with a switching-state space model and a series of mixed effects models, we show that the presence of killer whales strongly alters the behavior and distribution of narwhal. When killer whales were present (within about 100 km), narwhal moved closer to shore, where they were presumably less vulnerable. Under predation threat, narwhal movement patterns were more likely to be transiting, whereas in the absence of threat, more likely resident. Effects extended beyond discrete predatory events and persisted steadily for 10 d, the duration that killer whales remained in Admiralty Inlet. Our findings have two key consequences. First, given current reductions in sea ice and increases in Arctic killer whale sightings, killer whales have the potential to reshape Arctic marine mammal distributions and behavior. Second and of more general importance, predators have the potential to strongly affect movement behavior of tracked marine animals. Understanding predator effects may be as or more important than relating movement behavior to resource distribution or bottom-up drivers traditionally included in analyses of marine animal tracking data.

Keywords: biologging; climate change; predator–prey dynamics; sea ice; trait-mediated effects.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Map of all tracking data after sSSM fitting. Numbers indicate day of killer whale tag deployment (the first point of every fifth day is numbered to indicate days since deployment). Red and blue colors indicate sSSM-inferred behavior for narwhal—all seven narwhal tracks are plotted using the red/blue color code for behavioral state. Killer whale and narwhal tagging locations are indicated by yellow and cyan circles, respectively. Inferred behavior is not shown for the tracked killer whale, which is plotted in green.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Behavioral time series for three tracked narwhal. Colors indicate behavioral state, with red indicating resident behavior and blue indicating inferred transit. Black line segments indicate the movement vector at each time step for narwhal; orange lines indicate the distance the narwhal is from the tagged killer whale at that time step, and green lines indicate the move displacement vector made by the killer whale at that time step (displayed only when <15 km from the tracked narwhal). Note the shift in narwhal behavior coinciding with killer whale departure from Admiralty Inlet. Time-series of all tracked narwhal included in SI Appendix, Fig. S2-2.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Histograms of (Upper) depth and (Lower) distance from shore for narwhal during the exposure and postexposure periods. Histograms of individual narwhal are available in SI Appendix, Supplementary Results and Figures.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Empirical probability density functions (epdfs) of habitat use by narwhal as a function of distance from shore during the exposure and postexposure periods mapped onto Admiralty Inlet visualizing large change in apparent habitat preference of narwhal when exposed to killer whales (epdfs shown as histograms in Fig. 3).

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