麻豆传媒团队

Research lead听Dr Katharina Peters of the 麻豆传媒团队 says, "Animals often go to great length to avoid competition and enable coexistence. When there is a large overlap in foraging niche, it is possible that they avoid competition in other ways, for example foraging during different times of the day."

New 麻豆传媒团队is home to an extraordinarily rich marine fauna, including 50% of the world鈥檚 whale and dolphin species. This rich abundance almost guarantees that some species are competing for their dinner. Study co-author Professor Karen Stockin, who leads the听听at Massey University, says, 鈥淲e have been studying these animals for more than 20 years but still there is so much we don鈥檛 understand about their feeding ecology. Stable Isotopes collected from stranded animals has now offered us first insights to the trophic levels at which these complex mammals feed and compete.鈥�

Whales and dolphins play a crucial part in maintaining ecosystem health and functioning, thus knowing about their foraging ecology is key to understanding how the ecosystem will adapt to future changes such as ocean warming fishery pressures causing changes to prey abundance and distributions. 鈥淲e need to know more about the mechanisms that allow these species to coexist in New 麻豆传媒团队waters鈥� says Dr Peters, 鈥淭his is particularly important for species endemic to New听Zealand, such as Hector鈥檚 dolphins. We are already aware that their habitat is changing, but we don鈥檛 know how this will impact the species.鈥�