Abstract
Apex marine predators can structure marine communities, so factors underlying their abundance are of broad interest. However, such data are almost completely lacking for large sharks. We assessed the relationship between tiger shark abundance, water temperature, and the availability of a variety of known prey over 5 years in Western Australia. Abundance of sharks in four size categories and the density of prey (cormorants, dugongs, sea snakes, sea turtles) were indexed using daily catch rates and transects, respectively. Across all sizes, thermal conditions were a determinant of abundance, with numerical peaks coinciding with periods of high water temperature. However, for sharks exceeding 300 cm total length, the inclusion of dugong density significantly improved temperature-based models, suggesting that use of particular areas by large tiger sharks is influenced by availability of this sirenian. We conclude that large marine predator population models may benefit from the inclusion of measures of prey availability, but only if such measures consider prey types separately and account for ontogenetic shifts in the diet of the predator in question.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to our field assistants, and to Humminbird, Mercury Marine Australia, the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, Monkey Mia Wildsights (Shotover), National Geographic Society Expeditions Council, the National Science Foundation (grant no. 0526065), NSERC Canada (grant no. A6869), PADI Foundation, Shakespeare Electronics, the Shark Bay Fish Factory, and the University of Western Australia for grants and equipment. We are indebted to D. Charles for logistical help, D. Massey for field housing, H. Raven for temperature data, B. Black, J. Heyman, and R. Holst for hospitality, and two anonymous referees for helpful critiques. This research was conducted under Fisheries Western Australia permits 67/97 and 08/01, Western Australia Department of Conservation and Land Management permits NE001808, SF002347, SF003818, SF004228, and SF004542, SW008085, and renewals, and Simon Fraser University Animal Care permits. This paper is contribution no. 25 of the Shark Bay Ecosystem Research Project. All methods used in this study comply with the laws of the country in which they were invoked.
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Communicated by Marc Mangel.
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Wirsing, A.J., Heithaus, M.R. & Dill, L.M. Can measures of prey availability improve our ability to predict the abundance of large marine predators?. Oecologia 153, 563–568 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0769-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0769-0