Metabolic limits on dive duration and swimming speed in the southern elephant seal Mirounga leonina

摘要: Abstract The ability of air‐breathing marine predators to forage successfully depends on their remain submerged. This is in turn related total O2 stores and the rate at which these are used up while Body size was positively dive duration a sample 34 adult female southern elephant seals from Macquarie Island. However, there no relationship between body depth. indicates that smaller seals, with stores, make shorter dives than larger individuals but operate similar depths, resulting less time being spent Nine were also equipped velocity depth recorders. In eight plot swimming speed against revealed cloud points clear upper boundary. boundary could be described using regression analysis gave significant negative most cases. These results indicate metabolic varies activity lev...