Wandering Albatross ( Diomedea exulans chionoptera ) in the Southern Oceans: Effects of Dispersal and Density Dependence on the Persistence of an Island Metapopulation

• Main Authors: Inchausti, Pablo, Weimerskirch, Henri
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 2004
• Subjects: Heywood; Diomedea exulans; Wandering Albatross
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195166460.003.0037; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52323787/isbn-9780195166460-book-part-37.pdf

Abstract Spatially explicit metapopulation models, in which local population dynamics result from the interplay between local and regional environmental variability and dispersal from nearby populations, have become an important research direction in conservation biology. By allowing populations that experienced declines to recover through dispersal from other nearby populations, metapopulation models explicitly assess the impact of the degradation, destruction, and fragmentation of natural habitats, and this is probably the single most impotant cause of the current biodiversity crisis (Heywood and Watson 1995). While studies of dispersal have focused on terrestrial animals, very little information exists for marine animals for obvious logistical reasons. Pelagic seabirds breed on islands scattered over open waters—that is, on highly fragmented breeding habitats—and, while they are thought to have a high philopatry (Warham 1990), there is scant evidence of actual dispersal rates among colonies or islands (Ainley et al. 1990, Pyle 2001, Russell 1999), especially for those breeding on remote scattered oceanic islands like pelagic petrels and albatrosses.