Data from: Top-down control of a marine mesopredator: Increase in native white-tailed eagles accelerates the extinction of an endangered seabird population ...

• Main Authors: Anker-Nilssen, Tycho, Fayet, Annette L., Aarvak, Tomas
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2022
• Subjects: Black-legged kittiwake; Population dynamics; Seabirds; native predators; top-down control; white-tailed eagles; FOS Biological sciences; Norway; Black-legged Kittiwake; Northern Norway
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7f9; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7f9

1. Bottom-up control is an important regulator of marine mesopredators such as seabirds. The prevalence of top-down control on these species is however less well understood. In particular, how native predators affect seabird populations has rarely been quantified. 2. Here, we investigate how an increase in white-tailed eagles in northern Norway, a stronghold for the species, affected a local population of 25,000 pairs of black-legged kittiwakes, a red-listed seabird, during a 42-year period ending with colony extinction. We use a natural experiment of two neighbouring colonies with/without eagle predation to disentangle the effects of eagles from local kittiwake foraging conditions (using size of young herring as a proxy). 3. At the colony where eagle predation occurred, and in contrast to the eagle-free colony, kittiwake breeding success and population size declined with increased eagle abundance, the latter more strongly under poor foraging conditions. Breeding success increased with foraging conditions at ... : The data collection methods are in the paper and its supplementary materials. ...