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Are great whites ambush predators11/29/2023 ![]() Furthermore, scavenging can comprise an important component of a predator’s ecology (i.e., facultative scavenger). For example, a single dead ungulate carcass in a terrestrial ecosystem (i.e., forest or savannah) can induce scavenging across multiple trophic level consumers such as apex predatory mammals (e.g., bears, wolves, lions), secondary mammalian consumers (e.g., small carnivorous rodents, foxes, hyenas), as well as air-borne consumers (e.g., eagles, hawks, vultures, insects). Such a sudden input of energy (i.e., carrion/carcasses) creates a resource subsidy that lowers the energetic costs of consumption a predator would incur otherwise via hunting or predation, which in turn can create a fiercely competitive de-coupling of food-web dynamics. A dead or decaying carcass of an animal essentially creates a new habitat or resource patch in which consumers target and exploit through scavenging. In vertebrates, scavenging represents an important energy transfer pathway in many ecosystems, and can be induced in various ways such as predator kills and animal death due to disease and malnutrition, whereby the deceased becomes carrion.Ĭarrion availability and quality ranges across spatiotemporal scales in virtually all food webs, and as such, multi-species scavenger guilds can become nested within carnivore (and omnivore) trophic levels in many ecosystems ( Figure 1). Scavenging, a result of a temporary pulse of resources, is a type of multi-channel feeding, that facilitates both bottom-up and top-down regulation of populations through different trophic levels. While the appearance of a whale carcass is largely a stochastic event, we propose that white shark scavenging on whales may represent an underestimated, yet significant component to the overall foraging ecology of this species, especially as individuals attain sexual maturity. We discuss these data in relation to environmental conditions, shark social interactions, migration patterns, whale biology, and behaviorally-mediated trophic cascades. We further compare these data against observations of natural predation by sharks on seals in the study area. Moreover, extended daily observations permitted recordings of unique social, aggregative, and feeding behaviors. Observations of white sharks scavenging over successive days provided evidence of strategic and selective scavenging by this species. ![]() Here we present findings from multiple opportunistic observations of white sharks scavenging on whale carcasses in False Bay, South Africa. Scavenging, a result of a temporary pulse of resources, occurs in virtually all ecosystems containing carnivores, and is an important energy transfer pathway that can impact ecosystem structure and function, and this ecological significance has largely been considered from a terrestrial standpoint however, little is known about the role of scavenging in shaping the behavioral ecology of marine species, specifically apex predators. ![]()
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