{
  "abstract": "All air-breathing marine vertebrates face the same fundamental trade-off: time spent foraging underwater must be offset by surface recovery between dives. For decades, the dominant view in diving physiology has been that post-dive duration (PDD) reflects the repayment of oxygen debt and clearance of carbon dioxide and lactate. Using more than 800 000 dives from five sea lion species across 18 colonies spanning tropical to subpolar waters, we quantified how PDD scales with dive depth and duration and evaluated whether this pattern is consistent with metabolic recovery interpretations or instead points to depth-linked constraints. We found that PDD increases primarily and linearly with depth, while dive duration contributes to PDD only at greater depths, a relationship conserved across species despite pronounced differences in body mass, dive physiology and foraging ecology. Our findings conflict with predictions of metabolic recovery interpretations and point to a pressure-linked mechanism in which time at depth and resulting inert-gas loading shape surface recovery. By highlighting pressure-linked inert-gas management as a central candidate mechanism for surface interval regulation in inhalation divers, our study revises a central assumption in diving physiology, with broad consequences for understanding foraging efficiency, habitat accessibility and vulnerability to environmental change in air-breathing marine vertebrates.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA",
    "Biometry and Environmental System Analysis, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, BW, Germany",
    "Joint Institute for Individualisation in a Changing Environment (JICE), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany",
    "Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany",
    "Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia",
    "South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), West Beach, Australia",
    "South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, Stanley, Falkland Islands",
    "Department of Conservation, Marine Species and Threats Team, Wellington, New Zealand",
    "WILDBASE, Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand",
    "Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA",
    "Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, UK",
    "Department of Evolutionary Population Genetics, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany",
    "Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec), Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany",
    "British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK",
    "Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK",
    "Sharjah Marine Science Research Centre, University of Khorfakkan, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates",
    "Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark",
    "School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK",
    "Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Marine Predator Research Group, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia",
    "IMOS Animal Tagging, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, Australia",
    "National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA, USA",
    "Galapagos Science Center, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Islas Galápagos, Ecuador",
    "Fundación Conservando Galápagos, Galapagos Conservancy, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Ecuador",
    "Dirección del Parque Nacional Galápagos, Unidad Técnica Operativa San Cristóbal, Puerto Ayora, Ecuador"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 21,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Jonas F. L. Schwarz",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7493-6555"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Daniel P. Costa"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Oliver Krüger"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        5
      ],
      "name": "Nathan Angelakis"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Alastair Baylis"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7,
        8
      ],
      "name": "Barbara L. Chilvers"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Carsten F. Dormann"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        9,
        10
      ],
      "name": "Shannon L. Fowler"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4,
        5
      ],
      "name": "Simon D. Goldsworthy"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "Robert Harcourt"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2,
        11,
        12,
        13
      ],
      "name": "Joseph I. Hoffman",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5895-8949"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        9,
        14,
        15
      ],
      "name": "Luis A. Huckstadt",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2453-7350"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        16,
        17
      ],
      "name": "Jana Jeglinski"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        18
      ],
      "name": "Elizabeth McHuron",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3147-2628"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        19,
        20
      ],
      "name": "Clive R. McMahon",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5241-8917"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        21
      ],
      "name": "Sharon Melin"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        22,
        23,
        24
      ],
      "name": "Diego Páez-Rosas"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Svenja Stoehr",
      "orcid": "0009-0008-0287-2140"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Fritz Trillmich",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4816-1156"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        9
      ],
      "name": "Stella Villegas-Amtmann"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Rachel R. Holser",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8668-3839"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0e9j27d3xreg9.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1098/rspb.2026.1690",
  "fulltext_url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13725537/",
  "id": "0e9j27d3xreg9",
  "issns": [
    "0962-8452",
    "1471-2954"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1690",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Behaviour"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Development & Physiology"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Physiology"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Research"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "2303|Marine animal studies overview"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7224098213",
  "pdf_url": "https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article-pdf/doi/10.1098/rspb.2026.1690/6174116/rspb.2026.1690.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13725537",
  "pmid": "42947421",
  "published": "2026-10-21",
  "publisher": "The Royal Society",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0e9j27d3xreg9.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T12:23:54Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13725537",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1690"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "medicine",
      "origin": "heading:Physiology",
      "subfield": "physiology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Depth sets the recovery clock: evidence for a time-at-pressure effect in sea lions",
  "title_text": "Depth sets the recovery clock: evidence for a time-at-pressure effect in sea lions",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T12:21:45Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0e9j27d3xreg9",
  "venue": "Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences",
  "versions": []
}