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You Are What You Eat: Foraging Specializations and Their Influence on the Social Organization and Behavior of Killer Whales

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Abstract

The feeding ecology of predators can have a profound effect on their life history and behaviour. The killer whale—the apex marine predator—has a cosmopolitan distribution throughout the world’s oceans. Globally, it is a generalist predator with a diverse diet, but regionally, different socially and genetically isolated killer whale populations can have highly specialized foraging strategies involving only a few types of prey. In the eastern North Pacific, the three sympatric killer whale lineages have distinct dietary specializations: one feeds primarily on marine mammals, another on salmon, and the third appears to specialize on sharks. These ecological specializations are associated with distinct patterns of seasonal distribution, group size, social organization, foraging behavior, and acoustic activity. Divergent foraging strategies may have played a major role in the social isolation and genetic divergence of killer whale populations.

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Acknowledgments

We thank R. Baird, C. Chapman, V. Iriarte, C. Matkin, and J. Watson for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, and M. Malleson and J. Towers for kindly allowing us to use their photographs.

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  1. Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, V9T 6N7

    John K. B. Ford & Graeme M. Ellis

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Correspondence to John K. B. Ford .

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  1. Graduate School of Science Laboratory of Human Evolution Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Juichi Yamagiwa

  2. The Swire Institute of Marine Science School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Shek O, Hong Kong SAR

    Leszek Karczmarski

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Ford, J.K.B., Ellis, G.M. (2014). You Are What You Eat: Foraging Specializations and Their Influence on the Social Organization and Behavior of Killer Whales. In: Yamagiwa, J., Karczmarski, L. (eds) Primates and Cetaceans. Primatology Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54523-1_4

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