Dynamics of prey and predator movements in linked metapopulations

• Main Authors: 3rd World Seabird Conference 2021, Scopel, Lauren
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Underline Science Inc. 2021
• Subjects: Climate Change; Ecosystem; Ecology; FOS Biological sciences; Animal Science; Genomics; Arctic; Climate change; Northwest Atlantic; Sterna paradisaea
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.48448/t348-9g51; https://underline.io/lecture/34911-dynamics-of-prey-and-predator-movements-in-linked-metapopulations

Abstract: The Gulf of Mane (Northwest Atlantic) supports a long-term and large-scale seabird monitoring program, encompassing more than a dozen colonies and thirty years of data. This ecosystem has been subject to marine heatwaves and steep declines in commercially fished Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), allowing for a variety of investigations into seabird-ecosystem relationships. We present two studies involving large-scale data collection that each revealed new insights into ecosystem quality and function. One study linking seabird chick provisioning data to fishery and fishery-independent herring data indicated that herring declines were not uniform across the ecosystem; the relevant management units used by the fishery obscured smaller-scale changes to herring abundance that were particularly severe in the east. Seabird data also potentially illustrate movements of juvenile herring and show that Canadian-origin herring spend their first summers in the USA. Our second study examines the population dynamics and habitat quality of Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea), typically a widely dispersed and inaccessible seabird. We determined the source-sink status of each colony annually in our metapopulation, and linked it to habitat quality over 27 years. Each colony had unique diet profiles that prevented any single variable from being used as an index, but when examined together indicated high-quality and low-quality years. Impacts of mesopredator Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) were nearly impossible to quantify at a local scale, but became clearer at a metapopulation scale, inhibiting reproductive success and demographic contribution. These insights would not have been possible without data from multiple colonies, which allowed for synergistic conclusions. Authors: Lauren Scopel¹, Antony Diamond¹, Stephen Kress², Paula Shannon³, Linda Welch⁴, Sara Williams⁴ ¹University of New Brunswick, ²Cornell University, ³National Audubon Society Seabird Restoration Program, ⁴U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service