The scaling of area use in sharks and rays

Movement is a key aspect of marine vertebrate behavior and important information for the effective management of species. Over the past few decades movement in sharks and rays has received increasing attention as tracking... [ view full abstract ]

Movement is a key aspect of marine vertebrate behavior and important information for the effective management of species. Over the past few decades movement in sharks and rays has received increasing attention as tracking technologies have evolved, from mark-recapture to acoustic telemetry and satellite tags. While we have increased our knowledge of the degree of movement in many species, and have gained more knowledge about key aspects of area use – such as home range size, dispersal distance, and migratory behavior – a key next step is to develop a mechanistic understanding of what drives variation in an individual’s patterns of area use. Patterns of area use, specifically home range size, are strongly determined by energy availability in relation to an individual’s metabolic requirements. To develop a mechanistic understanding we will need to identify and investigate the strength of intrinsic biological characteristics (e.g. body size, breeding biology, metabolic rate) and ecological covariates (e.g. habitat type, ecological lifestyle, trophic ecology). Here we derive the scaling of shark and ray movements, including daily home range size and dispersal distances, and examine them in relation to morphology, ecology, and life history. We explain the variation in home range and movement attributes from 76 species from the IMOS Animal Tracking Facility database and from published studies.