Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity
Understanding interspecific interactions, and the influences of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change on communities, are key challenges in ecology. Despite the pressing need to understand these fundamental drivers of community structure and dynamics, only 17% of ecological studies cond...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989482/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439671 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4989482 2023-05-15T13:56:16+02:00 Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity Moreno, Rocío Stowasser, Gabriele McGill, Rona A. R. Bearhop, Stuart Phillips, Richard A. 2015-10-06 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989482/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439671 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989482/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439671 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 © 2015 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Community Ecology Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 2016-09-04T00:24:49Z Understanding interspecific interactions, and the influences of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change on communities, are key challenges in ecology. Despite the pressing need to understand these fundamental drivers of community structure and dynamics, only 17% of ecological studies conducted over the past three decades have been at the community level.Here, we assess the trophic structure of the procellariiform community breeding at South Georgia, to identify the factors that determine foraging niches and possible temporal changes. We collected conventional diet data from 13 sympatric species between 1974 and 2002, and quantified intra‐ and inter‐guild, and annual variation in diet between and within foraging habits. In addition, we tested the reliability of stable isotope analysis (SIA) of seabird feathers collected over a 13‐year period, in relation to those of their potential prey, as a tool to assess community structure when diets are diverse and there is high spatial heterogeneity in environmental baselines.Our results using conventional diet data identified a four‐guild community structure, distinguishing species that mainly feed on crustaceans; large fish and squid; a mixture of crustaceans, small fish and squid; or carrion. In total, Antarctic krill Euphausia superba represented 32%, and 14 other species a further 46% of the combined diet of all 13 predators, underlining the reliance of this community on relatively few types of prey. Annual variation in trophic segregation depended on relative prey availability; however, our data did not provide evidence of changes in guild structure associated with a suggested decline in Antarctic krill abundance over the past 40 years.Reflecting the differences in δ15 N of potential prey (crustaceans vs. squid vs. fish and carrion), analysis of δ15 N in chick feathers identified a three‐guild community structure that was constant over a 13‐year period, but lacked the trophic cluster representing giant petrels which was identified using conventional diet ... Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba Giant Petrels PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Journal of Animal Ecology 85 1 199 212 |
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English |
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Community Ecology |
spellingShingle |
Community Ecology Moreno, Rocío Stowasser, Gabriele McGill, Rona A. R. Bearhop, Stuart Phillips, Richard A. Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
topic_facet |
Community Ecology |
description |
Understanding interspecific interactions, and the influences of anthropogenic disturbance and environmental change on communities, are key challenges in ecology. Despite the pressing need to understand these fundamental drivers of community structure and dynamics, only 17% of ecological studies conducted over the past three decades have been at the community level.Here, we assess the trophic structure of the procellariiform community breeding at South Georgia, to identify the factors that determine foraging niches and possible temporal changes. We collected conventional diet data from 13 sympatric species between 1974 and 2002, and quantified intra‐ and inter‐guild, and annual variation in diet between and within foraging habits. In addition, we tested the reliability of stable isotope analysis (SIA) of seabird feathers collected over a 13‐year period, in relation to those of their potential prey, as a tool to assess community structure when diets are diverse and there is high spatial heterogeneity in environmental baselines.Our results using conventional diet data identified a four‐guild community structure, distinguishing species that mainly feed on crustaceans; large fish and squid; a mixture of crustaceans, small fish and squid; or carrion. In total, Antarctic krill Euphausia superba represented 32%, and 14 other species a further 46% of the combined diet of all 13 predators, underlining the reliance of this community on relatively few types of prey. Annual variation in trophic segregation depended on relative prey availability; however, our data did not provide evidence of changes in guild structure associated with a suggested decline in Antarctic krill abundance over the past 40 years.Reflecting the differences in δ15 N of potential prey (crustaceans vs. squid vs. fish and carrion), analysis of δ15 N in chick feathers identified a three‐guild community structure that was constant over a 13‐year period, but lacked the trophic cluster representing giant petrels which was identified using conventional diet ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Moreno, Rocío Stowasser, Gabriele McGill, Rona A. R. Bearhop, Stuart Phillips, Richard A. |
author_facet |
Moreno, Rocío Stowasser, Gabriele McGill, Rona A. R. Bearhop, Stuart Phillips, Richard A. |
author_sort |
Moreno, Rocío |
title |
Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
title_short |
Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
title_full |
Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
title_fullStr |
Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
title_full_unstemmed |
Assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
title_sort |
assessing the structure and temporal dynamics of seabird communities: the challenge of capturing marine ecosystem complexity |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989482/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439671 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 |
geographic |
Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba Giant Petrels |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Krill Euphausia superba Giant Petrels |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989482/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26439671 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 |
op_rights |
© 2015 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12434 |
container_title |
Journal of Animal Ecology |
container_volume |
85 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
199 |
op_container_end_page |
212 |
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1766263634729631744 |