The feeding ecology of little auks raises questions about winter zooplankton stocks in North Atlantic surface waters

International audience Copepods are essential components of marine food webs worldwide. In the North Atlantic, they are thought to perform vertical migration and to remain at depths more than 500m during winter. We challenge this concept through a study of the winter feeding ecology of little auks (...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biology Letters
Main Authors: Fort, Jérôme, Cherel, Yves, Harding, Ann M.A., Egevang, Carsten, Steen, Harald, Kuntz, Grégoire, Porter, Warren P, Grémillet, David
Other Authors: Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), 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)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud ), Centre d'études biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Alaska Pacific University, Greenland Institute for Natural Resources (GINR), Norwegian Polar Institute, Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, DST-NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2010
Subjects:
diving behaviour
stable isotope
energetic modelling
food requirements
seabird
marine food web
[SDE]Environmental Sciences
Greenland
Alle alle
North Atlantic
Copepods
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00527435
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00527435/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00527435/file/Fort%20et%20al_2010%20Biol%20Lett.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0082
Description
Summary:International audience Copepods are essential components of marine food webs worldwide. In the North Atlantic, they are thought to perform vertical migration and to remain at depths more than 500m during winter. We challenge this concept through a study of the winter feeding ecology of little auks (Alle alle), a highly abundant planktivorous seabird from the North Atlantic. By combining stable isotope and behavioural analyses, we strongly suggest that swarms of copepods are still available to their predators in water surface layers (less than 50m) during winter, even during short daylight periods. Using a new bioenergetic model, we estimate that the huge number (20–40 million birds) of little auks wintering off southwest Greenland consume 3600–7200 tonnes of copepods daily, strongly suggesting substantial zooplankton stocks in surface waters of the North Atlantic in the middle of the boreal winter

Similar Items