Early breeding season responses of red-legged kittiwakes to changes of prey availability and linkages to the non-breeding stage

• Main Authors: Orben, Rachael, Paredes, Rosana, Kitaysky, Alexander, Flesihman, Abram
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Axiom Data Science 2020
• Subjects: Bering Sea
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.24431/rw1k46s; https://search.dataone.org/#view/10.24431/rw1k46s

This dataset describes the foraging ecology, life history responses to poor foraging conditions, and overwintering ecology of red-legged kittiwakes breeding in the southeast Bering Sea on St. George Island, AK between 2015 and 2017. Data loggers were deployed during the summers 2015-17 to collect summer (GPS) and winter (GLS) tracking data to characterize foraging and migratory ranges. Samples were collected (blood and feathers) and processed to measure corticosterone (both blood and feathers), total mercury (both blood and feathers), change telomere length, sex, and stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen (feathers). Telomere length was also measured for other samples collected during fieldwork conducted on St.George in 2010-2014. Birds included in this study were banded and followed for reproductive success, and survival during summers 2015-17. Morphometric measurements were taken and egg volume was also measured. This dataset includes the following 7 csv data files, as well as a 1 compressed collection of raw GLS tracking data files. SG_RLKI_gls_winter_tracks_2016_2017.csv includes the processed GLS tracking data from winters 2016 and 2017. There are a total of 103 birds included in this dataset however, several did not make complete trips before the tag died. SG_RLKI_gls_tracking_2016_2017_raw.zip is a compressed collection of raw GLS tracking data files that were used to create SG_RLKI_gls_winter_tracks_2016_2017.csv. These files were downloaded and decompress with the software that came with the tags and because GLS data processing is always improving, have been provided here to allow future researchers to process these tracks with different methods. SG_RLKI_gps_summer_tracks_2015_2017.csv includes GPS tracking data from the summer during the pre-lay and incubation periods from 2015, 2016 and 2017. There are tracks from 1103 trips from 99 birds. Trips have been labeled but many are not foraging trips (short trips to the lakes on St.George or to sleep on the water during prelay). SG_RLKI_reproductive_productivity_2015_2017.csv includes reproductive nest monitoring from St.George during summer for 395, 437, and10 nest in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. SG_RLKI_resights_2011_2017.csv include band resight data from St.George during the summers 2015-2017. There is also some opportunistic data that was collected in 2010 and 2011 harvested from capture records of a few banded birds. SGRK_ResightEffort.csv this is the effort metadata about the band resights in SG_RLKI_resights_2011_2017.csv SG_RLKI_telomere_2010_2017.csv includes telomere results for red-legged kittiwakes from St.George Island between 2010 and 2017 analyzed as part of our study. SG_RLKI_Capture_Phys_2015_2017.csv includes all the data about when and where birds were captured, morphometric measurements, egg, volume, what instrumentation the bird received, and the values for samples processed for mercury, stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen, sex, and corticosterone. This is the data table that connects all the other datasets to metadata about the birds listed in the other datasets.