Hanging out at the club: Breeding status and territoriality affect individual space use, multi‐species overlap and pathogen transmission risk at a seabird colony

• Published in: Functional Ecology
• Main Authors: Lamb, Juliet, Tornos, Jeremy, Dedet, Romain, Gantelet, Hubert, Keck, Nicolas, Baron, Juliette, Bely, Marine, Clessin, Augustin, Flechet, Aline, Gamble, Amandine, Boulinier, Thierry
• Other Authors: Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM), Laboratoire Départemental Vétérinaire de l'Hérault, Conseil Général de l'Hérault, CEVA- BIOVAC, University of California (UC), This work was funded by the French Polar Institute (IPEV ECOPATH-1151), ANR ECOPATHS (ANR-21-CE35-0016), Réserve Naturelle Nationale des Terres Australes Françaises, Zone Atelier Antarctique (ZATA) and OSU OREME ECOPOP. We also acknowledge funding support for REMOVE_DISEASE project selected as part of the BiodiveRestore joint call from Biodiversa and Water JPI (ANR-21-BIRE-0006). This paper is a contribution of the Plan National d'Action Albatros d'Amsterdam. Juliet Lamb was funded by a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (H2020-MSCA-IF-2018 #843470), Amandine Gamble by a French Ministry of Research PhD fellowship, and Jeremy Tornos by Ceva Biovac and ANRT for a CIFRE PhD fellowship. Experimental design was approved by the Regional Animal Experimentation Ethical Committee (French Ministry of Research permit #10257-2018011712301381v6) and by the Comité de l'Environnement Polaire (A-2017-97, A-2017-111, A-2018-123, A 2018-139, A-2019-69, 2019-121, A-2019-132 and A-2019-135)., ANR-21-BIRE-0006,REMOVE_DISEASE,Conservation and restoration of degraded insular biodiversity: impacts of the removal of introduced mammals on the dynamics of infectious diseases in seabirds across islands of the Southern Ocean.(2021), ANR-21-CE35-0016,ECOPATHS,Ecologie de la circulation des agents infectieux dans les populations de vertébrés coloniaux: surveillance, compréhension et implications pour la conservation de la biodiversité dans les îles sub-antarctiques(2021)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDV.BA.ZV]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Vertebrate Zoology; Amsterdam Island; Brown Skua
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04124078; https://hal.science/hal-04124078/document; https://hal.science/hal-04124078/file/Functional%20Ecology%20-%202022%20-%20Lamb%20-%20Hanging%20out%20at%20the%20club%20Breeding%20status%20and%20territoriality%20affect%20individual%20space%20use%20.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.14240

International audience Wildlife movement ecology often focuses on breeders, whose territorial attachments facilitate trapping and following individuals over time. This leads to incomplete understanding of movements of individuals not actively breeding due to age, breeding failure, subordinance, and other factors. These individuals are often present in breeding populations and contribute to processes such as competition and pathogen spread. Therefore, excluding them from movement ecology studies could bias or mask important spatial dynamics. Loafing areas offer an alternative to breeding sites for capturing and tracking individuals. Such sites may allow for sampling individuals regardless of breeding status, while also avoiding disturbance of sensitive breeding areas. However, little is known about the breeding status of individuals attending loafing sites, or how their movements compare to those of breeders captured at nests. We captured a seabird, the brown skua, attending either nests or loafing areas (‘clubs’) at a multi-species seabird breeding site on Amsterdam Island (southern Indian Ocean). We outfitted skuas with GPS-UHF transmitters and inferred breeding statuses of individuals captured at clubs using movement patterns of breeders captured at nests. We then compared space use and activity patterns between breeders and nonbreeders. Both breeding and nonbreeding skuas attended clubs. Nonbreeders ranged more widely, were more active, and overlapped more with other seabirds and marine mammals than did breeders. Moreover, some nonbreeders occupied fixed territories and displayed more restricted movements than those without territories. Nonbreeders became less active over the breeding season, while activity of breeders remained stable. Nonbreeding skuas were exposed to the agent of avian cholera at similar rates to breeders but were more likely to forage in breeding areas of the endangered endemic Amsterdam albatross, increasing opportunities for interspecific pathogen transmission. Our results show that ...