News release

From: Frontiers

Study shows how dugongs regulate how they float, rise, and sink during shallow-water dives

Dugongs need to breathe air but forage underwater, so they must maximize the time they spend underwater by performing hundreds of short and shallow dives daily. Controlling their buoyancy – the upward force exerted by water against a body in it – is especially important for dugongs, who have large lungs relative to their body size, a feature that adds to buoyancy. Now, in a new Frontiers in Marine Science article, scientists found evidence that dugongs adjust how much air they inhale before dives, which helps them control their buoyancy. When diving deep, they breathe in deeper and swim harder early in their dives to avoid floating back to the surface. When performing shallow dives, they inhale less air which reduces the force pushing them back to the surface – an energy-saving strategy.