Horizontal and vertical movements as predictors of foraging success in a marine predator

11 With technical advances in wildlife telemetry, the study of cryptic predators’ responses to prey 12 distribution has been revolutionised. Considering marine predators, high resolution tagging 13 devices were developed lately to collect long and precise diving datasets. In this study, we 14 investigated, at fine temporal and spatial scales, changes in the horizontal movements and 15 diving patterns of a marine predator, the southern elephant seal. Satellite tracking data collected 16 on nine seals were processed with switching state-space models. Seals’ body condition, as a 17 proxy for foraging success, was estimated through changes in drift rate from Time Depth 18 Recorder (TDR) data. We identified (1) statistically distinct behavioural modes along the 19