Weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of North Atlantic seabird demography: a case study with Brünnich’s guillemots in Svalbard

• Published in: Marine Ecology Progress Series
• Main Authors: Fluhr, J, Strøm, H, Pradel, Roger, Duriez, Olivier, Beaugrand, G., Descamps, S.
• Other Authors: Norwegian Polar Institute, 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 ), Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 (LOG), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)-Université de Lille-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: Regime shift; Arctic; Uria lomvia; Sea surface temperature; Winter North Atlantic Oscillation; Subpolar Gyre Index; Adult survival; Seabirds; Climate change; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDV.EE.BIO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment/Bioclimatology; Bjørnøya; Svalbard; Svalbard Archipelago; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation; uria
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02104969; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02104969/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02104969/file/Fluhr%20MEPS%202017.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3354/meps11982

International audience The Arctic is experiencing environmental changes at unprecedented rates. These changes are spreading throughout the entire food web, affecting apex predators such as seabirds. Brünnich’s guillemot Uria lomvia populations in Svalbard archipelago have significantly declined since the mid-1990s. For long-lived species such as seabirds, population growth rate is highly sensitive to changes in adult survival rates, and slight changes in survival may have large consequences at the population level. Adult survival rates, were estimated for Brünnich’s guillemots individually marked and monitored from 1986 to 2011 at Bjørnøya, Svalbard. While survival appeared to be repeatedly high (mean ± SE; 95 ± 1%) from 1986 to 1995-98 (transitional years, when Svalbard guillemot colonies started to decline), it dropped by 9-12% over the period 1995-98 to 2011. This decline coincided with the occurrence of an abrupt ecosystem shift in the North Atlantic Ocean in the mid-1990s and the weakening of the Atlantic subpolar gyre. Variations in the subpolar gyre index (SGI) were significantly associated with inter-annual variation in guillemot annual survival, and a strong gyre (i.e. cold waters on guillemot wintering grounds) was associated with high adult survival. Our results, combined with other studies, suggest that the SGI may be an important global proxy to assess oceanographic conditions and changes in marine ecosystems in the North Atlantic.