Patterns of animal movement associated with foraging lie at the heart of many ecological studies and often animals face decisions of staying in an environment they know, versus relocating to new sites. The lack of knowledge of new foraging sites means there is risk associated with a decision to relocate (e.g. poor foraging) as well as a potential benefit (e.g. improved foraging). Using a unique long-term satellite tracking dataset for several sea turtle species, combined with capture-mark-recapture (CMR) data extending over 50 years, we show how, across species, individuals generally maintain tight fidelity to specific foraging sites after extended (up to almost 10,000 km) migration to and from distant breeding sites as well as across many decades. Migrating individuals often travelled through suitable foraging areas en route to their "home" site and so extended their journeys to maintain foraging site fidelity. We explore the likely mechanistic underpinnings of this trait, which is also seen in some migrating birds, and suggest that individuals will forgo areas of suitable forage encountered en route during migration when they have poor knowledge of the long-term suitability of those sites, making relocation to those sites risky.

中文翻译：

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长期迁移后对觅食地点的保真度

与觅食相关的动物运动模式是许多生态研究的核心，动物通常面临留在他们熟悉的环境中，而不是搬迁到新地点的决定。缺乏对新觅食地点的了解意味着搬迁决定（例如觅食不良）和潜在利益（例如改善觅食）存在相关风险。使用几种海龟物种的独特长期卫星跟踪数据集，结合超过 50 年的捕获标记重新捕获 (CMR) 数据，我们展示了跨物种的个体在扩展后通常如何保持对特定觅食地点的严格保真度。长达近 10,000 公里）迁徙到遥远的繁殖地以及跨越数十年。迁徙个体在前往他们的“