Drivers of seabird movements and their fitness consequences: insights from multi-colony tracking

• Main Authors: 3rd World Seabird Conference 2021, Fayet, Annette
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Underline Science Inc. 2021
• Subjects: Climate Change; Ecosystem; Ecology; FOS Biological sciences; Animal Science; Genomics; Indian; Norway; Iceland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48448/1stv-3w95; https://underline.io/lecture/34893-drivers-of-seabird-movements-and-their-fitness-consequences-insights-from-multi-colony-tracking

Abstract: Seabirds are highly mobile animals, flying vast distances across open oceans on a single foraging trip or a long migration journey. Identifying the drivers of seabird movements, and the fitness consequences of variation in these movements, is key to understanding the mechanisms shaping their ecology and ultimately to predict how their distribution and populations may be affected by environmental change. Multi-colony studies are a powerful tool to identify large-scale ecological drivers of seabird movement, measure variation between populations and understand how these may affect population dynamics. I illustrate this claim with three examples of multi-colony studies I have recently been leading, from a small-scale comparison of two populations to an ocean-wide study, all of which have yielded important ecological findings. First, studying the spatial ecology and breeding behaviour of two seemingly similar populations of tropicbirds in the Indian Ocean reveals stark differences between the two locations, suggesting underlying differences in environmental conditions and highlighting the need for distinct conservation approaches. Second, a larger-scale comparison of the foraging ecology of four colonies of Atlantic puffins in the UK, Iceland and Norway with different population trends and breeding performance helps us to identify drivers of population declines. Finally, a species-wide study of thirteen puffin colonies across the North Atlantic unveils key ecological drivers of migration. Authors: Annette Fayet¹ ¹University of Oxford