Grey seals use anthropogenic signals from acoustic tags to locate fish: evidence from a simulated foraging task

Stansbury, Amanda L., Götz, Thomas, Deecke, Volker B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2781-5915 and Janik, Vincent M. (2015) Grey seals use anthropogenic signals from acoustic tags to locate fish: evidence from a simulated foraging task. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282 (1798).

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Abstract

Anthropogenic noise can have negative effects on animal behaviour and physiology. However, noise is often introduced systematically and potentially provides information for navigation or prey detection. Here, we show that grey seals (Halichoerus grypus) learn to use sounds from acoustic fish tags as an indicator of food location. In 20 randomized trials each, 10 grey seals individually explored 20 foraging boxes, with one box containing a tagged fish, one containing an untagged fish and all other boxes being empty. The tagged box was found after significantly fewer non-tag box visits across trials, and seals revisited boxes containing the tag more often than any other box. The time and number of boxes needed to find both fish decreased significantly throughout consecutive trials. Two additional controls were conducted to investigate the role of the acoustic signal: (i) tags were placed in one box, with no fish present in any boxes and (ii) additional pieces of fish, inaccessible to the seal, were placed in the previously empty 18 boxes, making possible alternative chemosensory cues less reliable. During these controls, the acoustically tagged box was generally found significantly faster than the control box. Our results show that animals learn to use information provided by anthropogenic signals to enhance foraging success.

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher:	The Royal Society
ISSN:	1471-2954
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Forestry and Conservation Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas (CNPPA)
Additional Information:	© 2014 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Depositing User:	Volker Deecke
Date Deposited:	14 Apr 2015 15:04
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 13:45
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1690

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