MEPS 408:207-226 (2010)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps08552

ABSTRACT: The foraging habitats of 7 species of marine apex predators were observed simultaneously in a shallow sea, with continuous measurements taken of the detailed bio-physical water column characteristics to determine habitat preferences. We found the occurrence of small-scale ‘hotspots’, where 50% of all animals were actively foraging in less than 5% of the 1000 km of transects surveyed. By investigating a contrasting range of foraging strategies across a variety of fish-eating seabirds and marine mammals, we determined which habitat characteristics were consistently important across species. A static habitat variable, tidal stratification, log₁₀(h/U³) (h = water depth, U = tidal current amplitude), was found to be the best indicator of the probability of presence and abundance of individual species. All 7 mobile top-predators preferentially foraged within habitats with small-scale (2 to 10 km) patches having (1) high concentrations of chlorophyll in the sub-surface chlorophyll maximum (CHL_max) and (2) high variance in bottom topography, with different species preferring to forage in different locations within these habitats. Patchiness of CHL_max was not associated with the locations of strong horizontal temperature gradients (fronts) or high surface chlorophyll values, but instead may be related to areas of high sub-surface primary production due to locally increased vertical mixing. These small-scale areas represent a newly identified class of spatially important location that may play a critical role within the trophic coupling of shallow seas. Such sub-surface hotspots may represent the limited locations where the majority of predator-prey interactions occur, despite making up only a small percentage of the marine environment.

KEY WORDS: Biological hotspots · Foraging habitats · Marine top predators · Predator-prey interactions · Shallow sea · Sub-surface chlorophyll maximum · Tidal mixing · Topography