Data from: Condition-dependent foraging strategies in a coastal seabird: evidence that the rich get richer

The degree to which foraging individuals are able to appropriately modify
their behaviors in response to dynamic environmental conditions and
associated resource availability can have important fitness consequences.
Despite an increasingly refined understanding of differences in foraging
behavior between individuals, we still lack detailed characterizations of
within-individual variation over space and time, and what factors may
drive this variability. From 2014-2017, we used GPS transmitters and
accelerometers to document foraging movements by breeding adult Brown
Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) in the northern Gulf of Mexico, where
the prey landscape is patchy and dynamic at various scales. Assessments of
traditional foraging metrics such as trip distance, linearity, or duration
did not yield significant relationships between individuals. However, we
did observe lower site fidelity and less variation in energy expenditure
in birds of higher body condition, despite a population-level trend of
increased fidelity as the breeding season progressed. These findings
suggest that high-quality individuals are both more variable and more
efficient in their foraging behaviors during a period of high energetic
demand, consistent with a 'rich get richer' scenario in which
individuals in better condition are able to invest in more costly
behaviors that provide higher returns. This work highlights the importance
of considering behavioral variation at multiple scales, with particular
reference to within-individual variation, to improve our understanding of
foraging ecology in wild populations.