Scientists have traditionally focused on educating the public on science or correcting misinformation. But researchers from marginalized communities often have broader goals in science communication.

Understanding how air-breathing diving animals moderate their dive behaviour when foraging successfully is foundational in the study of their foraging ecology. Yet, this fundamental relationship remains unresolved with previous research pointing to inconsistent relationships, differing nominally according to sex, habitat type and scale. Empirically testing the relationships between dive effort responses and foraging success is further hampered because of challenges obtaining concurrent measures of behavioural responses and foraging success at sea. We compiled a multi-decadal dive dataset from 609 southern elephant seals, including their dive responses (transit rate, and relative dive and surface recovery duration) and buoyancy—changes in which provide an indirect measure of body condition change and foraging success. Using this dataset, we tested how seal dive behaviour alters when foraging remotely at sea. We found that as foraging success increased, seals increased transit (ascent, descent) rates and decreased relative dive durations for a given depth, with no response in surface recovery. Our results were consistent across sexes and foraging habitats, and account for the general effects of buoyancy on dive behaviour. The homogeneity of these findings suggests that there is a general functional response in which elephant seals perform, on average, shorter, steeper dives during periods of successful foraging. Importantly, we can align these results with predictions from the marginal value theorem (MVT), that a forager should remain in a patch only until gains drop below the neighbourhood mean. Our findings have broad-based implications for how ecologists interpret dive responses of wild marine animals, demonstrating the value of seeking independent in situ information on foraging success.

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The mission of the international Society for Marine Mammalogy is to promote the global advancement of marine mammal science and contribute to its relevance and impact in education, conservation and ma...

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Jay Graber dunks on Mark Zuckerberg without mentioning his name.

Event organizers often overlook the visa-related difficulties that researchers in low- and middle-income countries face. This must change.

48 scientific societies representing almost 100,000 scientists signed on to a letter asking Congress to protect the future of science

Be a part of Endangered Species Day! Every year, we organize events and days of action around the country to celebrate conservation successes and work to make our world safer for endangered and threat...