Dear colleagues, Have you ever wondered how cetaceans locate and discriminate prey? If so, you may be interested in my recent review paper published in Marine Mammal Science about how cetaceans use their senses to find prey depending on distance to target: A sense of scale: Foraging cetaceans' use of scale-dependent multimodal sensory systems The paper is open access, so freely downloadable here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12426/full
Abstract: Research on cetacean foraging ecology is central to our understanding oftheir spatial and behavioral ecology. Yet, functional mechanisms by whichcetaceans detect prey across different scales remain unclear. Here, I postulate thatcetaceans utilize a scale-dependent, multimodal sensory system to assess andincrease prey encounters. I review the literature on cetacean sensory systemsrelated to foraging ecology, and hypothesize the effective scales of eachsensory modality to inform foraging opportunities. Next, I build two“scale-of-senses” schematics for the general groups of dolphins and baleenwhales. These schematics illustrate the hypothetical interchange of sensory modalities used tolocate and discriminate prey at spatial scales ranging from 0 m to 1,000 km:(1) vision, (2) audition (sound production and sound reception), (3)chemoreception, (4) magnetoreception, and somatosensory perception of (5) preyor (6) oceanographic stimuli. The schematics illustrate how a cetacean may integratesensory modalities to form an adaptive foraging landscape as a function ofdistance to prey. The scale-of-senses schematic is flexible, allowing forcase-specific application and enhancement with improved cetacean sensory data.The framework serves to improve our understanding of functional cetaceanforaging ecology, and to develop new hypotheses, methods, and results regardinghow cetaceans forage at multiple scales. Cheers,Leigh Leigh Torres, Ph.D.Assistant Professor; Oregon Sea GrantDepartment of Fisheries and Wildlife, Marine Mammal Institute Oregon State University, Hatfield Marine Science Center2030 SE Marine Science DriveNewport, OR 97365, U.S.A541-867-0895Webpage: http://mmi.oregonstate.edu/gemm-lab Lab blog: http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/gemmlab/
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