Additive effects of climate and fisheries drive ongoing declines in multiple albatross species

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Pardo, Deborah, Forcada, Jaume, Wood, Andrew G., Tuck, Geoff N., Ireland, Louise, Pradel, Roger, Croxall, John P., Phillips, Richard A.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2017
• Subjects: PNAS Plus; Bird Island; Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5740610/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29158390; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618819114

Three high-conservation priority populations were studied: the wandering, grey-headed, and black-browed albatrosses from Bird Island, South Georgia. They represent 12–50% of global numbers and have declined by 40–60% in 35 years. As temperatures and environmental stochasticity increase, polar species are particularly at risk, while fisheries accidentally kill hundreds of thousands individuals each year. Longitudinal monitoring of >40,000 individuals ringed since 1972 was used with detailed at-sea distributions, environmental data, and fisheries effort spanning the Southern Ocean to explore the factors driving population change and how they may combine. The powerful comparative framework used here is one of the most extensive to date and could be used to understand and better mitigate the fate of many threatened wild populations.