No change in Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross ( Thalassarche chlororhynchos ) egg size over 160 years

• Main Authors: Bond, Alexander L., McClelland, Gregory T.W., Cuthbert, Richard J., Glass, Trevor, Repetto, Julian, Ryan, Peter G.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Taylor & Francis 2020
• Subjects: Evolutionary Biology; FOS Biological sciences; Ecology; Inorganic Chemistry; FOS Chemical sciences; 110309 Infectious Diseases; FOS Health sciences; Plant Biology; Tristan; South Atlantic Ocean
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12263015; https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/No_change_in_Atlantic_Yellow-nosed_Albatross_i_Thalassarche_chlororhynchos_i_egg_size_over_160_years/12263015

Biotic and abiotic conditions in the world’s oceans have changed considerably in the last two centuries as a result of anthropogenic factors, including whaling, sealing, fishing, and climate change. For species that have limited variation in life-history traits, life-history characteristics may impede the ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Albatrosses are one such group, where breeding investment is limited to a single egg every one or two years. At a coarse level, individuals may decide whether to breed or not, or whether to incubate an egg or not, but one of the only finer-scale adjustment in parental investment involves altering egg size, along with parental foraging and chick provisioning. We investigated changes in egg size in Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses ( Thalassarche chlororhynchos ) breeding at Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic Ocean, from 1856 to 2015. We found no change in egg length, or breadth, which may suggest that with regards to this life-history parameter, Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatrosses appear to have been able to buffer the effects of the trophic, climatic and oceanographic changes in the South Atlantic Ocean.