Behavioural adaption of Scaly-sided Merganser (Mergus squamatus) to habitats with different water depth: different activity profile but the same foraging energetics

Abstract: Throughout evolutionary history, animals are finely tuned to adjust their behaviors corresponding to environmental variations. Behavioral flexibility represents an important component of a species’ adaptive capacity in the face of rapid anthropogenetic environmental change, and knowledge of animal behaviours is increasingly recognized in conservation biology. In aquatic ecosystem, variation of water depth is a key factor affecting the availability of food, thus the foraging behaviours of many waterbirds, especially piscivores. In this study, we compared the foraging behaviours of Scaly-sided Merganser (Mergus squamatus), an endangered migratory diving duck endemic to east Asia, in habitats with different water depth, using video camera records obtained from the known wintering sites during three winters from 2018-2020. Further, the energy expenditure of foraging behavior profile and energy intake based on fish sizes were calculated to study the foraging energetics. In total, 200 effective video footages that contained 1,086 minutes with 17,995 behaviours and 163 events of catching fish were recorded. Results showed that 1) time length for fishing (including eye-submerging, head-dipping, diving and food handling) of Mergus squamatus in shallow waters was significantly more than in deep waters; 2) Mergus squamatus spent significantly more time for preparing (including vigilance, preening and swimming) in deep waters than in shallow waters; 3) the mean catch rate was 0.28 fish/minute in shallow waters, which is significantly higher than the value of 0.13 fish/minute in deep waters; 4) despite the distinct foraging behaviour profiles and energy intakes, Mergus squamatus showed similar energetics in shallow and deep waters. We concluded that Mergus squamatus is a good example of behavioural flexibility that aligns with expectations of optimum foraging theory, in that it behaves in accordance to resource availability in different environments, resulting in high foraging efficiency. The behavioural flexibility can be related to its evolution history.