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Temporal Dynamics Of Galapagos Marine Iguna (Amblyhynchus Cristatus) Haulout, Brianna Gale Payne

Master's Theses

Galápagos marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) briefly forage in marine habitats but spend their remaining time hauled out on land. A wide range of diurnal activities, from social and thermoregulatory behaviors to sleep and food processing, occurs during haulout. To understand the dynamics of haulout and foraging in relation to environmental factors, I fit compartmental models derived from ordinary differential equations to field data collected daily from 30 April to 16 May 2011 at two sites—one Sandy and one Rocky—at Cabo Douglas, Isla Fernandina. The best model for haulout at the Sandy site accounts for 77–80% of observed variability and includes …