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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Depth sets the recovery clock: evidence for a time-at-pressure effect in sea lions

  • Jonas F. L. Schwarz1,2
  • Daniel P. Costa1
  • Oliver Krüger3,4
  • Nathan Angelakis5,6
  • Alastair Baylis7
  • Barbara L. Chilvers8,9
  • Carsten F. Dormann2
  • Shannon L. Fowler10,11
  • Simon D. Goldsworthy5,6
  • Robert Harcourt9
  • Joseph I. Hoffman3,12,13,14
  • Luis A. Huckstadt10,15,16
9 more authors
  • Jana Jeglinski17,18
  • Elizabeth McHuron19
  • Clive R. McMahon20,21
  • Sharon Melin22
  • Diego Páez-Rosas23,24,25
  • Svenja Stoehr4
  • Fritz Trillmich4
  • Stella Villegas-Amtmann10
  • Rachel R. Holser1
25 affiliations
  1. 1Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
  2. 2Biometry and Environmental System Analysis, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, BW, Germany
  3. 3Joint Institute for Individualisation in a Changing Environment (JICE), Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
  4. 4Department of Animal Behaviour, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
  5. 5Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
  6. 6South Australian Research and Development Institute (Aquatic Sciences), West Beach, Australia
  7. 7South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute, Stanley, Falkland Islands
  8. 8Department of Conservation, Marine Species and Threats Team, Wellington, New Zealand
  9. 9WILDBASE, Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Science, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
  10. 10Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
  11. 11Department of Life Sciences, University of Roehampton, London, UK
  12. 12Department of Evolutionary Population Genetics, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
  13. 13Center for Biotechnology (CeBiTec), Faculty of Biology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
  14. 14British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK
  15. 15Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK
  16. 16Sharjah Marine Science Research Centre, University of Khorfakkan, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
  17. 17Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
  18. 18School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
  19. 19Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
  20. 20Marine Predator Research Group, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
  21. 21IMOS Animal Tagging, Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Mosman, Australia
  22. 22National Marine Mammal Laboratory, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA, USA
  23. 23Galapagos Science Center, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Islas Galápagos, Ecuador
  24. 24Fundación Conservando Galápagos, Galapagos Conservancy, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Ecuador
  25. 25Dirección del Parque Nacional Galápagos, Unidad Técnica Operativa San Cristóbal, Puerto Ayora, Ecuador
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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.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{schwarz2026depth,
  title = {{Depth sets the recovery clock: evidence for a time-at-pressure effect in sea lions}},
  author = {Jonas F. L. Schwarz and Daniel P. Costa and Oliver Krüger and Nathan Angelakis and Alastair Baylis and Barbara L. Chilvers and Carsten F. Dormann and Shannon L. Fowler and Simon D. Goldsworthy and Robert Harcourt and Joseph I. Hoffman and Luis A. Huckstadt and Jana Jeglinski and Elizabeth McHuron and Clive R. McMahon and Sharon Melin and Diego Páez-Rosas and Svenja Stoehr and Fritz Trillmich and Stella Villegas-Amtmann and Rachel R. Holser},
  journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1098/rspb.2026.1690},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1690},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Depth sets the recovery clock: evidence for a time-at-pressure effect in sea lions
AU  - Jonas F. L. Schwarz
AU  - Daniel P. Costa
AU  - Oliver Krüger
AU  - Nathan Angelakis
AU  - Alastair Baylis
AU  - Barbara L. Chilvers
AU  - Carsten F. Dormann
AU  - Shannon L. Fowler
AU  - Simon D. Goldsworthy
AU  - Robert Harcourt
AU  - Joseph I. Hoffman
AU  - Luis A. Huckstadt
AU  - Jana Jeglinski
AU  - Elizabeth McHuron
AU  - Clive R. McMahon
AU  - Sharon Melin
AU  - Diego Páez-Rosas
AU  - Svenja Stoehr
AU  - Fritz Trillmich
AU  - Stella Villegas-Amtmann
AU  - Rachel R. Holser
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/21
JO  - Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
DO  - 10.1098/rspb.2026.1690
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1690
AB  - 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.
SN  - 0962-8452
SN  - 1471-2954
ER  -