SCALE‐DEPENDENT SPATIAL DYNAMICSMARINE BIRDS IN THE BERING SEA

• Published in: Biological Reviews
• Main Author: SCHNEIDER, DAVID C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1993
• Subjects: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences; General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology; Bering Sea
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185x.1993.tb01245.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1469-185X.1993.tb01245.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-185X.1993.tb01245.x

Summary One of the major developments in ecology has been the recognition of the importance of spatial and temporal scale in describing patterns of distribution and abundance. This article develops a quantitative framework that includes both spatial and temporal scale, then uses it to review what has been learned about a well studied group of mobile organisms — marine birds in the Bering Sea. Review showed that lateral gradients in density are by far the most frequently measured property of birds away from colonies in the Bering Sea. Gradients are related to a variety of environmental factors, depending on spatial scale. Review within a quantitative framework showed that the assumptions for interpreting the spatial dynamics responsible for observed patterns are rarely stated, that interpretations of pattern at sea have focused on individual movements in relation to food concentration, and that little is known about wind and water‐driven movements, or rates of death and recruitment away from colonies. Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that distribution and feeding are linked to the rate of resupply of nekton to birds near the sea surface. The framework provided here permits the relative importance of competing processes to be stated and evaluated as a function of spatial scale. The framework should be useful in summarizing the spatial dynamics of other groups of mobile organisms.