Using multi-colony tracking to understand the foraging ecology of two sympatrically breeding auks around Iceland
Abstract: The rapidly changing climate in the Arctic is expected to have significant impacts on seabird foraging ecology, mediated through changes in the distribution and abundance of their prey but also the distribution of competitors (e.g. with southerly species expanding into the Arctic). Here we...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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Underline Science Inc.
2021
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48448/nfec-6906 https://underline.io/lecture/34891-using-multi-colony-tracking-to-understand-the-foraging-ecology-of-two-sympatrically-breeding-auks-around-iceland |
| Summary: | Abstract: The rapidly changing climate in the Arctic is expected to have significant impacts on seabird foraging ecology, mediated through changes in the distribution and abundance of their prey but also the distribution of competitors (e.g. with southerly species expanding into the Arctic). Here we study how the environment and competition interactions affect the foraging ecology and abundance of two closely related species breeding in sympatry in several colonies around the Arctic: the common guillemot (a temperate species) and Brünnich's guillemot (an Arctic species). For this, we tracked the two species during the breeding season with GPS and temperature-depth recorders at five colonies around Iceland, which is surrounded by contrasted marine environments (due to different cold and warm currents). We relate the habitat use of the two species to available environmental conditions around each site and colony size. We then relate population counts and trends to surrounding temperature and competition. We find different foraging behaviours and different degrees of overlap between the two species among the different sites, but not always more pronounced segregation in the biggest colony. Nevertheless, even though we found evidence of segregation at most sites, we did not find any effect of competition at the population level. Authors: Anne-Sophie Bonnet-Lebrun¹, Jason Matthiopoulos², Þorkell Þórarinsson³, Yann Kolbeinsson³, Thomas Larsen⁴, Patrick Roberts⁴, Morten Frederiksen⁵, Aude Boutet¹, Derren Fox¹, Tim Morley¹, Kirsty Franklin⁶, Kayleigh Jones¹, Erpur Hansen⁷, Norman Ratcliffe¹ ¹British Antarctic Survey, ²Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, ³Northeast Iceland Nature Research Centre, ⁴Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, ⁵Aarhus University, ⁶University of East Anglia, ⁷South Iceland Nature Research Centre |
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