Dear All, This recent review in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics may be of interest to some of you: How Whales Dive, Feast, and Fast: The Ecophysiological Drivers and Limits of Foraging in the Evolution of Cetaceans
Abstract Whales are an extraordinary study group for questions about ecology and´evolution because their combinations of extreme body sizes and unique foraging strategies are unparalleled among animals. From a terrestrial ancestry, whales evolved specialized oceanic foraging mechanisms that characterize the two main groups of living cetaceans: echolocation by toothed whales and bulk filter feeding by baleen whales. In toothed whales, lineage-specific increases in body size, enhanced diving capacity, and echolocation enable them to hunt the most abundant prey on the planet: deep-sea fish and cephalopods. Even greater body size increases, along with filter feeding and fasting capacity, permit large baleen whales to migrate long distances and exploit epipelagic patches of schooling prey, such as krill or fish, which are highly abundant but ephemeral. For both groups, prey abundance and distribution limit foraging performance, yielding divergent energetic niches that have shaped their convergent evolution to gigantism. The paper can be found here: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102220-025458 Alternatively, feel free to write me an email for a pdf copy. Happy holidays, Peter
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