31.08.2013 Views

waders and their estuarine food supplies - Vlaams Instituut voor de ...

waders and their estuarine food supplies - Vlaams Instituut voor de ...

waders and their estuarine food supplies - Vlaams Instituut voor de ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

crease <strong>their</strong> encounter rate with more profitable prey.<br />

The next <strong>de</strong>cision Oystercatchers have to make is<br />

which of the encountered prey they should lake <strong>and</strong><br />

which ihey should ignore. As noted above, the captive<br />

Oystercatcher studied by Wanink & Zwarts (1985)<br />

was able to attain an intake rate 50*31 above the predicted<br />

rate when prey <strong>de</strong>nsity was high (Fig. 12C).<br />

Their explanation for this was thai, at the high prey<br />

<strong>de</strong>nsity, the bird only took prev from the upper 3 cm<br />

thai were gaping <strong>and</strong> so could be stabbed immediately.<br />

As a result, the prey were opened <strong>and</strong> the llesh swallowed<br />

in less than 15 s. nearly twice as quickly as<br />

when a typical prey from the upper 3 cm was taken<br />

(Fig. 12A). The hypothesis that Oystercatchers mav ignore<br />

closed, <strong>and</strong> thus less profitable, bivalves had already<br />

been proposed by Hulscher (1976) who observed<br />

that Oystercatchers spent less time h<strong>and</strong>ling Cerasto<strong>de</strong>rma<br />

when prey <strong>de</strong>nsiiv increased. By rejecting<br />

closed bivalves when prey are abundant, Oystercatch-<br />

50-<br />

40-<br />

i/i<br />

"5<br />

I 20<br />

E<br />

3<br />

C<br />

10(-<br />

PREY SIZE SELECTION AND INTAKE RATE<br />

I other species<br />

•uyi<br />

I Scrobicularia<br />

| Macoma<br />

"JrVyWus<br />

H Cerasto<strong>de</strong>rma<br />

fit<br />

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5<br />

intake rate (mg-s-")<br />

Fig. 13. Frequency dislribulion of Intake i.ites i mg ash tree dry llesh<br />

- feeding) measured in 197 studies, given •eparaiely for five<br />

bivalve species, data for -even other prev (pe<strong>de</strong>s are lumped. The<br />

souices for the live bivalve species are given in Ihe legend to I ig. 14.<br />

Other sources: Ragworm Nereis diversicolor. Boates & (loss Cus­<br />

tard 11989k Bunskoeke elal. (I996). Durell

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!