TY  - THES
AU  - Le Vaillant M.
PY  - 2011//
TI  - Effects of age and experience on foraging strategies in the King penguin.
N2  - Life history theory predicts that long-lived species should firstly favour their survival at young ages since their chances to engage in future reproductive attempts is high, and then progressively favour their reproduction when growing old. This theory has received much support from experimental and field data as reproductive success often increases with age until the individual reaches senescence. One explanation of age-dependent reproductive performance could be the improvement in foraging efficiency with age and acquisition of experience. We examined age and experience effects on foraging behaviour in a long-lived seabird, the king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus).We highlighted that, with increasing age and experience, king penguin in Crozet Archipelago conduct strategies that aim at reducing the foraging effort, such as diving optimization or age-specific choice of prey. The extra foraging effort of first breeders had an impact on their breeding success. Nevertheless, we found no differences in hunting efficiency according to age and/or experience. Our results suggest that foraging efficiency of breeders could be more linked to physiological processes, such as cellular ageing, than to age or experience.
N1  - exported from refbase (http://publi.ipev.fr/polar_references/show.php?record=1880), last updated on Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:17:32 +0200
ID  - LeVaillantM.2011
ER  -