Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season
Abstract Seabirds have increasingly encountered offshore wind farms (OWFs) in European waters in the past 10 years, resulting in potential conflicts with offshore foraging areas. During the breeding season, seabirds are restricted in their choice of foraging habitat and are under increased pressure...
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2020
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5/fulltext.html |
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crspringernat:10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 2023-05-15T18:41:31+02:00 Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season Peschko, Verena Mercker, Moritz Garthe, Stefan Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5/fulltext.html en eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Marine Biology volume 167, issue 8 ISSN 0025-3162 1432-1793 Ecology Aquatic Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics journal-article 2020 crspringernat https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 2022-01-04T13:38:00Z Abstract Seabirds have increasingly encountered offshore wind farms (OWFs) in European waters in the past 10 years, resulting in potential conflicts with offshore foraging areas. During the breeding season, seabirds are restricted in their choice of foraging habitat and are under increased pressure to find enough prey to raise their offspring. However, information on the individual reactions of seabirds towards OWFs during the breeding season is lacking. Three OWFs located 23–35 km north of the island of Helgoland have operated since October 2015. We studied their possible effects on locally breeding common guillemots ( Uria aalge ) using GPS tracking. GPS tags were deployed on 12 breeding guillemots from Helgoland for 8–26 days during 2016–2017. Most individuals avoided the OWFs, but one individual in each year briefly entered the OWFs on two or three occasions. Using a point process model, we revealed a 63% reduction in the resource selection of the OWF areas compared with the surroundings (lower confidence interval (CI) = 79% reduction, upper CI = 36% reduction). Furthermore, OWF avoidance was increased to 75% when the turbine blades were rotating (lower CI = 93% reduction, upper CI = 11% reduction). Guillemots mainly approached the OWFs from their eastern edge when resting or diving, and rarely approached the areas when commuting. These results provide a detailed description of guillemot reactions to OWFs during the breeding season, and the first comprehensive analysis of OWF effects on this species based on telemetry data. The strong avoidance effect for guillemots during the breeding season indicates the need to consider the presence of OWFs when interpreting future trends in the abundance and breeding success of this species. Article in Journal/Newspaper Uria aalge uria Springer Nature (via Crossref) Helgoland Marine Biology 167 8 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Springer Nature (via Crossref) |
op_collection_id |
crspringernat |
language |
English |
topic |
Ecology Aquatic Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
spellingShingle |
Ecology Aquatic Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Peschko, Verena Mercker, Moritz Garthe, Stefan Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
topic_facet |
Ecology Aquatic Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics |
description |
Abstract Seabirds have increasingly encountered offshore wind farms (OWFs) in European waters in the past 10 years, resulting in potential conflicts with offshore foraging areas. During the breeding season, seabirds are restricted in their choice of foraging habitat and are under increased pressure to find enough prey to raise their offspring. However, information on the individual reactions of seabirds towards OWFs during the breeding season is lacking. Three OWFs located 23–35 km north of the island of Helgoland have operated since October 2015. We studied their possible effects on locally breeding common guillemots ( Uria aalge ) using GPS tracking. GPS tags were deployed on 12 breeding guillemots from Helgoland for 8–26 days during 2016–2017. Most individuals avoided the OWFs, but one individual in each year briefly entered the OWFs on two or three occasions. Using a point process model, we revealed a 63% reduction in the resource selection of the OWF areas compared with the surroundings (lower confidence interval (CI) = 79% reduction, upper CI = 36% reduction). Furthermore, OWF avoidance was increased to 75% when the turbine blades were rotating (lower CI = 93% reduction, upper CI = 11% reduction). Guillemots mainly approached the OWFs from their eastern edge when resting or diving, and rarely approached the areas when commuting. These results provide a detailed description of guillemot reactions to OWFs during the breeding season, and the first comprehensive analysis of OWF effects on this species based on telemetry data. The strong avoidance effect for guillemots during the breeding season indicates the need to consider the presence of OWFs when interpreting future trends in the abundance and breeding success of this species. |
author2 |
Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Peschko, Verena Mercker, Moritz Garthe, Stefan |
author_facet |
Peschko, Verena Mercker, Moritz Garthe, Stefan |
author_sort |
Peschko, Verena |
title |
Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
title_short |
Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
title_full |
Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
title_fullStr |
Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
title_full_unstemmed |
Telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (Uria aalge) during the breeding season |
title_sort |
telemetry reveals strong effects of offshore wind farms on behaviour and habitat use of common guillemots (uria aalge) during the breeding season |
publisher |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5/fulltext.html |
geographic |
Helgoland |
geographic_facet |
Helgoland |
genre |
Uria aalge uria |
genre_facet |
Uria aalge uria |
op_source |
Marine Biology volume 167, issue 8 ISSN 0025-3162 1432-1793 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-020-03735-5 |
container_title |
Marine Biology |
container_volume |
167 |
container_issue |
8 |
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1766231047036469248 |