Swimming modes affect dive durations in diving birds

Dive duration and body mass are positively correlated across air-breathing vertebrate species, but other factors affecting the dive duration are inadequately studied. Here, we examined the effect of a previously overlooked factor, swimming mode, using phylogenetically informed statistics with data on the diving capabilities of 53 species of avian divers. We predicted that wing-propelled birds would dive for longer durations than similar-sized foot-propelled birds because of their lower locomotion costs. The maximum dive duration was 1.1 times longer for the wing-propelled birds than for the foot-propelled birds for a given body mass and dive depth. In contrast, the mean dive duration was 1.1 times longer for foot-propelled birds than for wing-propelled birds. Our results indicate that swimming mode may be one of the factors influencing the physiological limits on dive duration. Foraging style, which potentially explains the effect of swimming mode, may also determine the maximum and mea..., , # Data from: Swimming modes affect dive durations in diving birds

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.z612jm6rq](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6rq)

## Description of the data and file structure

The file \"Dataset_maximum_53sp.txt\" contains body mass (kg), maximum dive duration (min), maximum dive depth (m), and swimming mode of 53 avian species.

The file \"Dataset_mean_38sp.txt\" contains body mass (kg), mean dive duration (min), mean dive depth (m), and swimming mode of 38 avian species. In both files, the swimming mode was categorised as either wing-propelled (WP) or foot-propelled (FP).

The file \"Phylogenetic_distance_matrix_53sp.dsc\" contains the Phylogenetic distance matrix of 53 species.

The file \"Phylogenetic_distance_matrix_38sp.dsc\" contains the Phylogenetic distance matrix of 38 species., ,