Annual survival of adult Atlantic Puffins Fratercula arctica is positively correlated with Herring Clupea harengus availability

• Published in: Ibis
• Main Authors: Breton, André R., Diamond, Antony W.
• Other Authors: Frederiksen, Morten
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: fratercula; Fratercula arctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ibi.12100; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fibi.12100; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/ibi.12100

Atlantic H erring is a keystone species in several marine ecosystems, supporting intensive fisheries as well as many predators including seabirds. Biomass of this stock in eastern N orth A merica has declined considerably in recent years, potentially putting at risk populations of its predators. Although adult survival in seabirds is considered robust to moderate changes in food availability, it is also the life‐history component most critical to sustaining populations of long‐lived birds. To investigate the possibility that A tlantic P uffin survival has been affected by reduced abundance of its main prey, we analysed the encounter histories of 2999 A tlantic P uffins ringed on M achias S eal I sland to estimate annual adult survival for the years 1999–2011 and assess trends in survival and the effects of several biological and environmental covariates. Features of P uffin biology and resighting procedures likely to introduce heterogeneity into our resighting probabilities were accounted for and models of survival were assessed using standard methods. We used the variance components procedure in P rogram MARK and survival estimates from a time‐varying model to estimate the process variance (biological variation in survival) accounted for by suspected covariates of survival. Two proxies of food availability each explained more than half of the variation in annual survival: fishery landings of A tlantic H erring (52%) and per cent (by mass) of 1‐group H erring in the diet of P uffin chicks (51%). In addition to these proxies, May sea‐surface temperature accounted for 37% of variance in survival, but winter values of N orth A tlantic O scillation showed no effect. Of those parameters of P uffin biology examined, chick growth rate explained 19% of the process variance in annual survival; laying date, fledging condition and fledging date all explained no variance. A decline in fishery landings of H erring since the early 1990s, and a concurrent decline in adult P uffin survival, reinforces concern for the health of ...