Dive depth, dive duration and bottom duration ranged between 1.4 125.5 m, 2 346 s and 0 219 s, respectively (Table 1).
These differences were related to the dive duration parameters and the within-dive orientation of dashes.
A significantly different pattern (chi-square: p<0.0001 compared with both males and females in the southern areas) was also seen in the duration of dives where only 52% (Jan) to 64% (Feb) of dives in the winter were shorter than 2 min. Here 27% and 16% of dives lasted longer than 5 min in January and February, respectively.
These were: maximum dive depth (m), total dive and post-dive duration (s), descent, bottom and ascent duration (s), and the number and duration of dashes (s), as a proxy of the prey pursuit [26], [27].
The post-dive duration, representing the recovery time between dives at the surface, was considered when ≤100 s [29].
For the two southern areas the duration of dives also showed strong seasonal variations for both sexes.
Although the dive duration of black-browed albatrosses has not been reported previously, the mean and maximum dive durations in this study (3.1 s and 11 s) is close to similar-sized grey-headed albatrosses (3.6 s and 14 s) [28] or shy albatrosses Thalassarche cauta (4.4 s and 19 s) [29].
This result is not unexpected considering that the dive duration of elephant seals is about as long as the time an ARGOS satellite is overhead (20 min), meaning that all of the location information will most likely be transmitted during a single 2 to 3 minute surface interval.
The dive duration of sport divers, who reported per quarter, was relatively constant throughout the year.
The dive duration of middle age females was shorter than that of young and old birds while their dive effort (measure for dive and post-dive duration relation) was lower than that of young ones, suggesting middle-aged birds were in better physical condition than other ones.
