caa a22 4500 469074744 CHVBK 20180323132932.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19920901xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00133310 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00133310 Foraging in a fractal environment: Spatial patterns in a marine predator-prey system [Elektronische Daten] [Robert Russell, George Hunt Jr., Kenneth Coyle, R. Cooney] Spatial relationships between predators and prey have important implications for landscape processes and patterns. Highly mobile oceanic birds and their patchily distributed prey constitute an accessible model system for studying these relationships. High-frequency echosounders can be used together with simultaneous direct visual observations to quantitatively describe the distributions of seabird consumers and their resources over a wide range of spatial scales, yielding information which is rarely available in terrestrial systems. Recent fine-scale investigations which have used acoustics to study the distribution of foraging marine birds have reported weak or ephemeral spatial associations between the birds and their prey. These results are inconsistent with predictions of optimal foraging, but several considerations suggest that traditional foraging models do not adequately describe resource acquisition in marine environments. Relative to their terrestrial counterparts, oceanic ‘landscapes' are structurally very simple, but they generally lack visual cues about resource availability. An emerging view assumes that perceptually constrained organisms searching for food in multiscale environments should respond to patterns of resource abundance over a continuum of scales. We explore fractal geometry as a possible tool for quantifying this view and for describing spatial dispersion patterns that result from foraging behavior. Data on an Alaskan seabird (least auklet [Aethia pusilla]) and its zooplanktonic food resources suggest that fractal approaches can yield new ecological insights into complex spatial patterns deriving from animal movements. SPB Academic Publishing bv, 1992 fractal dimension nationallicence spatial correlation nationallicence predators nationallicence consumers nationallicence resources nationallicence seabirds nationallicence Zooplankton nationallicence foraging nationallicence animal movements nationallicence Russell Robert Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 92717, Irvine, California, USA aut Hunt Jr. George Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 92717, Irvine, California, USA aut Coyle Kenneth Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, 99775-1080, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA aut Cooney R. Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, 99775-1080, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA aut Landscape Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 7/3(1992-09-01), 195-209 0921-2973 7:3<195 1992 7 10980 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133310 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133310 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Russell Robert Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 92717, Irvine, California, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hunt Jr George Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 92717, Irvine, California, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Coyle Kenneth Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, 99775-1080, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cooney R. Institute of Marine Science, University of Alaska, 99775-1080, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Landscape Ecology Kluwer Academic Publishers 7/3(1992-09-01), 195-209 0921-2973 7:3<195 1992 7 10980 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer