Geology topics

Randall W. Davis

Publications and source records attributed to Randall W. Davis.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2025

Global tracking of marine megafauna space use reveals how to achieve conservation targets

The recent Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) sets ambitious goals but no clear pathway for how zero loss of important biodiversity areas and halting human-induced extinction of threatened species will be achieved. We assembled a multi-taxa tracking dataset (11 million geopositions from 15,845 tracked individuals across 121 species) to provide a global assessment of space use of highly mobile marine megafauna, showing that 63% of the area that they cover is used 80% of the time as important migratory corridors or residence areas. The GBF 30% threshold (Target 3) will be insufficient for marine megafauna’s effective conservation, leaving important areas exposed to major anthropogenic threats. Coupling area protection with mitigation strategies (e.g., fishing regulation, wildlife-traffic separation) will be essential to reach international goals and conserve biodiversity.

Science↗

USGS2021

Sea otter foraging behavior

Sea otters are marine specialists but diet generalists, which feed primarily on benthic mega-invertebrates (i.e., body dimension >1 cm). They locate and capture epibenthic and infaunal prey with their forepaws by relying on vision and tactile sensitivity during short-duration dives (generally <2 min) in shallow waters (routine dives <30 m and maximum dive depth ~100 m) of the littoral zone. Sea otters have an elevated resting metabolic rate and small or no energy reserves in the form of blubber, so they feed every 3–4 h. Foraging dives often occur in bouts (i.e., two or more consecutive dives), which may last several hours with 1–2 min between dives, depending on the type of prey. Sea otters consume small or soft prey entirely or use their teeth or stone tools to access the flesh of mega-invertebrates with a shell, test, or exoskeleton. The daily percentage of time that sea otters devote to foraging depends on age, sex, presence of a pup, time of year, and prey abundance, which varies geographically, seasonally, and episodically. In areas occupied by sea otters for many years, epifaunal prey generally decline first followed by infaunal species, and this may result in greater foraging effort and diet specialization associated with density-dependent competition for food. Although prey availability strongly influences sea otter carrying capacity, both intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence population equilibrium density, resulting in spatiotemporal variations in foraging behavior.

Book chapter↗

USGS2019

Future directions in sea otter research and management

The conservation and management of sea otters has benefited from a dedicated research effort over the past 60 years enabling this species to recover from a few thousand in the early 20th century to about 150,000 today. Continued research to allow full, pre-exploitation recovery and restoration of nearshore ecosystems should focus on at least seven key challenges: 1) Defining sea otter populations at smaller spatial scales that reflect this species’ life history and dispersal patterns; 2) Understanding factors that regulate sea otter population density with a focus on index sites that are representative of the variety of littoral habitats occupied by sea otters around the North Pacific Rim; 3) Quantifying the effects of sea otters on the littoral community with a focus on how food availability limits population and ecosystem recovery and on predicting the effect of sea otter reoccupation on commercially valuable invertebrates; 4) Making sea otter monitoring programs comparable across geo-political boundaries through international collaboration to optimize survey efforts both spatially and temporally and to determine the cause of changes in sea otter demographics; 5) Evaluating the conservation benefits of sea otter reintroductions into historical habitat; 6) Assessing the socioeconomic costs and benefits of sea otter range expansion to anticipate and mitigate conflicts; 7) Recognizing in conservation and management plans that sea otters can be significantly affected by higher level predators in some circumstances. Many of these challenges will require new tools including next generation geolocation tag technology that will allow assessments of long-range movements, dispersal and gene flow in various populations.

Frontiers in Marine Science↗