Data from: Effects of agricultural practices on foraging habitats of a seabird species in the Baltic Sea ...

• Main Authors: Garthe, Stefan, Schwemmer, Philipp, Kubetzki, Ulrike, Heinze, Bernd
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Movebank Data Repository 2022
• Subjects: Larus canus; animal foraging; animal movement; animal tracking; common gull; GPS logger; mew gull; resource selection; seabirds
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.p44ms6mr; https://www.datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.1552

Omnivorous and opportunistic species may be good indicators of food availability. Gulls often use human-impacted landscapes and may respond to changes by altering their feeding ecology. We investigated the foraging behavior of individual common gulls (Larus canus), focusing on their distribution during foraging and their selected habitat types. We tracked adult common gulls using GPS telemetry at their largest breeding colony in the southwestern Baltic Sea, Germany. Foraging habitats were analyzed from tracking data for three breeding seasons 2016, 2017, and 2019 and were compared with potentially available foraging habitats. Most breeding birds flew toward terrestrial areas. Feeding sites were located on average 11.7–14.3 km from the colony (range 0.9–36.5 km). Corn and sugar beet fields were used significantly and extensively compared with their availability in 2016 and 2017, while wheat, rape, and barley fields were used significantly less. Data from 2019 suggested seasonal shifts in habitat use. Birds ...