Survival of the fattest: linking body condition to prey availability and survivorship of killer whales

Stewart, Joshua D.; Durban, John W.; Fearnbach, Holly; Barrett‐Lennard, Lance G.; Casler, Paige K.; Ward, Eric J.; Dapp, Derek R.

doi:10.1002/ecs2.3660

i

Survival of the fattest: linking body condition to prey availability and survivorship of killer whales

Supporting Files

2021
By Stewart, Joshua D. ; Durban, John W. ; Fearnbach, Holly ; ...

Details

Journal Title:

Ecosphere
Personal Author:

Stewart, Joshua D. ; Durban, John W. ; Fearnbach, Holly ; Barrett‐Lennard, Lance G. ; Casler, Paige K. ; Ward, Eric J. ; Dapp, Derek R.
NOAA Program & Office:

NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) ; NWFSC (Northwest Fisheries Science Center) ; SWFSC (Southwest Fisheries Science Center)
Description:

Recovering small, endangered populations is challenging, especially if the drivers of declines are not well understood. While infrequent births and deaths may be important to the outlook of endan-gered populations, small sample sizes confound studies seeking the mechanisms underlying demographic ﬂuctuations. Individual metrics of health, such as nutritive condition, can provide a rich data source on population status and may translate into population trends. We examined interannual changes in bodycondition metrics of endangered Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) collected using helicopters andremotely operated drones. We imaged and measured the condition of the majority of all three social pods(J, K, and L) in each of seven years between 2008 and 2019. We used Bayesian multi-state transition modelsto identify relationships between body condition changes and both tributary-speci ﬁc and area-based indices of Chinook salmon abundance, and K-fold cross-validation to compare the predictive power of can- didate salmon covariates. We found that Fraser River (tributary-speci ﬁc) and Salish Sea (area-based) Chi- nook salmon abundances had the greatest predictive power for J Pod body condition changes, as well as
Keywords:

Ecology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics Ecology, Evolution, Behavior And Systematics
Source:

Ecosphere, 12(8)
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.3660
ISSN:

2150-8925 ; 2150-8925
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

Wiley
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:80bae973d3f9f24d5fedbf0b5d510d9a93adc35d6e3f0b7b9be39fd61b32e5d4
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/54772/noaa_54772_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 2.46 MB ]

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