Collaborative Research: Predator facilitation across a variable marine environment.

合作研究：在多变的海洋环境中促进捕食者。

• 批准号: 2113466
• 负责人: Hillary Young
• 金额: $ 4.3万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-10-15 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2113466&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Predator; facilitation; across

In the open ocean, unique and poorly understood interactions between apex predators can take place, where one predator influences prey to make them more susceptible to other types of predators. During such “facilitation” interactions between large, predatory pelagic species (dolphins, tunas, swordfish, sharks) attack forage fish from below, driving dense aggregations to the surface where they become available to aerial predators (seabirds). These interactions are hard to observe, which is problematic because they may be particularly important for numerous seabird species believed to be dependent on facilitated foraging. During this project, we will develop methods to remotely observe these interactions using a novel combination of biologging devices (GPS, cameras, accelerometers, heart rate loggers, and stomach temperature loggers) in concert with new statistical approaches for analyzing animal tracking data. This will allow the investigators to detect and characterize these interactions more accurately and measure the degree to which facilitation improves foraging efficiency in tropical pelagic seabirds. The project will occur at Palmyra Atoll in partnership with NOAA, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy in an effort to provide management guidance regarding the importance of predator facilitation and its potential loss on seabird populations world-wide. Graduate and undergraduate students at the four participating universities will be involved in research and receive valuable hands-on educational and training experiences.This project will investigate the nature of and importance of open-ocean predator facilitation, a key but overlooked trait-mediated interaction between two predators that target a common prey. To achieve these objectives, the project will develop methods to remotely detect facilitation interactions and evaluate their energetic consequences to foraging seabirds by combining data from a unique suite of biologging devices in analyses using novel statistical modeling techniques. Specifically, animal-borne cameras will be combined with GPS telemetry deployed on red-footed boobies (Sula sula) to characterize facilitated foraging interactions around Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific. Cameras will directly observe the presence of facilitation and potentially the taxonomic composition of other predators, while bird-borne GPS data will record movement patterns, location, and frequency of these interactions. With these data, the investigators will develop Bayesian dynamic parameter movement models that detect facilitation from GPS-observed movement patterns alone, when camera data are not collected. Finally, on a pilot basis to demonstrate feasibility, the models will then be fit to individuals tracked by GPS while carrying biologging equipment that measures energetic expenditure (triaxial accelerometry, heart rate loggers) and gain (stomach temperature loggers) to evaluate the associated energetic impact of facilitation on overall energy balance of foraging seabirds. These observations will be supplemented with more traditional approaches to demonstrate the technical feasibility of this approach for measuring the impacts of facilitated foraging in free living individuals that forage in the open ocean. Once developed, it will be possible to relate the importance of this ecological interaction to breeding success at the population-level for seabirds that can be similarly observed, making precise observation of foraging behaviors possible from available biologging technologies and statistical modeling approaches.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在开阔的海洋中，顶端捕食者之间可能发生独特而知之甚少的相互作用，其中一种捕食者影响猎物，使它们更容易受到其他类型捕食者的影响。 在这种“促进”作用期间，大型掠食性中上层物种（海豚、金枪鱼、旗鱼、鲨鱼）从下面攻击饲料鱼，将密集的鱼群驱赶到水面，供空中掠食者（海鸟）捕食。这些相互作用很难观察到，这是有问题的，因为它们可能是特别重要的许多海鸟物种被认为是依赖于促进觅食。在这个项目中，我们将开发一种方法来远程观察这些相互作用，使用生物记录设备（GPS，摄像头，加速度计，心率记录仪和胃温记录仪）的新组合，并结合新的统计方法来分析动物跟踪数据。这将使研究人员能够更准确地检测和描述这些相互作用，并测量促进作用在多大程度上提高了热带中上层海鸟的觅食效率。该项目将在帕尔米拉环礁与NOAA、美国鱼类和野生动物管理局以及大自然保护协会合作，努力就捕食者便利化的重要性及其对全球海鸟种群的潜在损失提供管理指导。四所参与大学的研究生和本科生将参与研究并获得宝贵的实践教育和培训经验。该项目将研究公海捕食者促进作用的本质和重要性，这是两个捕食者之间关键但被忽视的特征介导的相互作用针对共同猎物。为了实现这些目标，该项目将开发远程检测促进相互作用的方法，并通过使用新的统计建模技术将来自一套独特的生物记录设备的数据结合起来，评估其对觅食海鸟的能量后果。 具体而言，动物携带的相机将与部署在红脚鲣鸟（苏拉sula）上的GPS遥测技术相结合，以描述太平洋中部帕尔米拉环礁周围的便利觅食互动。相机将直接观察促进的存在，并可能观察其他捕食者的分类组成，而鸟载GPS数据将记录这些相互作用的运动模式、位置和频率。 有了这些数据，研究人员将开发贝叶斯动态参数运动模型，当没有收集相机数据时，该模型可以单独从GPS观察到的运动模式中检测促进作用。最后，为证明可行性，将在试点基础上对这些模型进行拟合，使其适用于携带生物记录设备的个人，这些设备测量能量消耗（三轴加速度计、心率记录仪）和增益（胃温记录仪），以评估便利化对觅食海鸟总体能量平衡的相关能量影响。这些观察将补充更传统的方法，以证明这种方法的技术可行性，以衡量促进觅食的影响，在自由生活的个人，在公海上觅食。一旦开发出来，就有可能将这种生态相互作用的重要性与可以类似观察到的海鸟种群一级的繁殖成功联系起来，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的评估来支持。影响审查标准。