Fig 1.
Ranges of Resident-type killer whales in the eastern north Pacific Ocean and study area for prey and fecal samples collected from Southern Resident killer whales between October and May from 2004 to 2017.
Fig 2.
Months and years of Southern Resident killer whale fecal sample collections.
Y-axis indicates number of samples collected per day that were included in the analysis. Open and filled symbols indicate outer coast and Salish Sea samples, respectively. Fecal samples that were pooled prior to sequencing are connected by lines.
Fig 3.
Seasonal trends in the diversity (top) and number (bottom) of Southern Resident killer whale prey species (>1%) per fecal sample.
Open and filled symbols indicate samples from the outer coast and Salish Sea, respectively. The line indicates the predicted values from local polynomial regression. Data from May—September are from Ford et al. (2016).
Fig 4.
Seasonal proportion of sequences assigned to seven Southern Resident killer whale prey species (or groups of species) across all fecal samples.
Open and filled symbols indicate samples from the outer coast and Salish Sea, respectively. Lines indicate predicted values from local polynomial regression. Data from May—September are from [10].
Table 1.
Total number of Southern Resident killer whale prey identified to species from Scale (S) or Tissue (T), and Fecal (F) analyses (excluding species with < 1% in weighted averages) by season in Puget Sound (PS), Juan de Fuca Strait/San Juan Islands (JdF/SJI), Northern Georgia Strait (NGS), and outer Coast Waters (CW).
Table 2.
Estimated mean percentage (±SE) of Chinook salmon stock composition of Southern Resident killer whale prey from Puget Sound and outer coast waters based on remains from prey capture event samples for fall/early winter and Mid-winter/early spring.
Table 3.
Ages of salmonids and steelhead determined from scales of fish consumed by Southern Resident killer whales in different areas of their range.
Fig 5.
a. Age composition of chum salmon consumed by SRKW in the Puget Sound portion of our study area and primarily by NRKW in British Columbia [8]. b. Age composition of Chinook salmon consumed by SRKW in Puget Sound and the outer coast waters of our study and primarily by NRKW in British Columbia [8].