Almost like a whale – First evidence of suction-feeding in a seabird

Abstract

Little auks (Alle alle) are one of the most numerous seabird species in the world that feed primarily on copepods in arctic waters. Their high daily energy requirements leave them vulnerable to current changes in the arctic plankton community, where a smaller, less profitable copepod species (Calanus finmarchicus) becomes increasingly abundant. Little auks have been estimated to require ∼60,000 copepods per day, necessitating prey capture rates of ∼6 copepods per second underwater. To achieve such performance, it has been suggested that little auks capture their prey by (non-visual) filter-feeding. We tested this hypothesis by exposing little auks to varying copepod densities within a shallow experimental pool and filming their prey capture behaviour. At none of the copepod densities tested did birds filter-feed. Instead, all birds captured copepods by what we identified as visually guided suction-feeding, achieved through an extension of their sub-lingual pouch. Suction-feeding is very common in fish and marine mammals, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that it has been specifically identified in a seabird species. While presumably less efficient than filter-feeding, this behaviour may allow little auks to foster higher resilience when facing the consequences of arctic climate change.