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. 2022 Mar;18(3):20210599.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0599. Epub 2022 Mar 23.

Social dynamics and individual hunting tactics of white sharks revealed by biologging

Affiliations

Social dynamics and individual hunting tactics of white sharks revealed by biologging

Yannis P Papastamatiou et al. Biol Lett. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Social foraging, where animals forage in groups, takes many forms but is less studied in marine predators as measuring social associations in the wild is challenging. We used biologging (activity, cameras and telemetry receivers) sensors to measure social associations and simultaneous behaviour, in white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) off Guadalupe Island, Mexico. Animal-borne telemetry receivers revealed that sharks varied in the number of associations they formed and occurred most often when sharks were swimming in straight paths or when they were turning frequently. While many associations were likely random, there was evidence of some stronger associations. Sharks varied in the depths they used and their activity, with some individuals more active in shallow water while others were more active 200-300 m deep. We propose that white sharks associate with other individuals so they can inadvertently share information on the location or remains of large prey. However, there may be a wide range of individual variability in both behaviour and sociality. Biologging now enables social associations of animals to be measured, concurrent with measures of their behaviour, so that social foraging of large marine predators can be quantified in the wild.

Keywords: accelerometers; inter-animal telemetry; social associations; social foraging.

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Conflict of interest statement

We declare we have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Social associations for free-ranging white sharks at GI. (a) A white shark with a biologging social tag on the dorsal fin (photo: A. Voyer) and (b) the frequency distribution of association index strength for all four focal sharks. Most associations were weak (orange) but there were a small number of strong associations (blue). (c) The spatial location of associations were determined from acoustic detections on underwater listening stations for all four focal sharks. (d) Diel patterns of associations for all four sharks fitted with biologgers. (e) Temporal patterns and number of associations for WS2 and (f) the social network for WS2. Red individuals are female and blue males for (e) and (f) and green edges represent the stronger associations.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Results from GAMM of the effect of and interaction between swimming depth and heading s.d. (a proxy for tortuosity) tensor product smooths, on white shark activity (ODBA). Colour ramps represent the additive effect of tensor products on ODBA values. Note that additive effect varies across individual smooths and range of colour ramps. Grey shaded areas represent values beyond sampling extent of either predictor for individuals (shaded rectangles) and all sharks combined (solid grey irregular polygons).

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