PacMam Podcast: Cheap Hunting vs. Expensive Dining
Description
Every animal has to balance the cost of foraging, with the benefit of what they get out of it. They have to make sure the effort is worth the reward! For predators, this means how much energy they expend in the hunt, vs. how much energy they are getting out of the prey the capture. Harbor porpoises generally feed on a lot of small fish, but have a very high metabolism. So they need to eat a lot, and that takes time. In this paper we discuss why this seemingly not effecient strategy is actually pretty effecient and why. For harbor porpoises this strategy is energetically pretty cheap, if not time consuming!
Paper is freely available here: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.adj7132
One of the biggest questions about harbor porpoises is if the stocks we currently manage are truly one large population, or if there are smaller distinct units within a geographic area. DNA can help answer this question, but getting samples from harbor porpoises using traditional routes (i.e....
Published 11/16/24
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We discuss a little about the biology, behavior and fun facts about each species. Have fun and learn about marine mammals with PacMam!
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Published 11/04/24