Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica
To monitor and conserve a species, it is crucial to understand the size and distribution of populations. For seabirds, population surveys are usually conducted at peak breeding attendance. One of the largest populations of Cape petrels in East Antarctica is at the Vestfold Islands, where environment...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:9006014 2023-05-15T13:40:18+02:00 Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica Kliska, Kimberley Southwell, Colin Salton, Marcus Williams, Richard Emmerson, Louise 2022-04-13 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006014/ https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 en eng The Royal Society http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006014/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 © 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY R Soc Open Sci Ecology Conservation and Global Change Biology Text 2022 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 2022-04-17T01:15:15Z To monitor and conserve a species, it is crucial to understand the size and distribution of populations. For seabirds, population surveys are usually conducted at peak breeding attendance. One of the largest populations of Cape petrels in East Antarctica is at the Vestfold Islands, where environmental and logistical constraints often prevent access to breeding sites at the optimal time for population surveys. In this study, we aim to quantify the contemporary and historical breeding population size of these Cape petrels by adjusting nest counts for variation in breeding phenology using photographs from remote cameras. We also compare spatial distribution between 1970s and 2017/2018. Our results show ground counts occurred outside peak breeding attendance, and adjusting for phenology changed the contemporary and historical population estimates. The Cape petrels showed local intra-island or adjacent-island changes in their distribution between the 1970s and 2017/2018 with no evidence of expanding or restricting their distribution or a significant change in their breeding population size. The results emphasize the importance of accounting for phenology in population counts, where populations are inaccessible at an optimal survey time. We discuss the applications of our research methodology for populations breeding in remote areas and as a baseline for assessing population change. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Cape Petrels East Antarctica PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic East Antarctica Vestfold Royal Society Open Science 9 4 |
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English |
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Ecology Conservation and Global Change Biology |
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Ecology Conservation and Global Change Biology Kliska, Kimberley Southwell, Colin Salton, Marcus Williams, Richard Emmerson, Louise Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
topic_facet |
Ecology Conservation and Global Change Biology |
description |
To monitor and conserve a species, it is crucial to understand the size and distribution of populations. For seabirds, population surveys are usually conducted at peak breeding attendance. One of the largest populations of Cape petrels in East Antarctica is at the Vestfold Islands, where environmental and logistical constraints often prevent access to breeding sites at the optimal time for population surveys. In this study, we aim to quantify the contemporary and historical breeding population size of these Cape petrels by adjusting nest counts for variation in breeding phenology using photographs from remote cameras. We also compare spatial distribution between 1970s and 2017/2018. Our results show ground counts occurred outside peak breeding attendance, and adjusting for phenology changed the contemporary and historical population estimates. The Cape petrels showed local intra-island or adjacent-island changes in their distribution between the 1970s and 2017/2018 with no evidence of expanding or restricting their distribution or a significant change in their breeding population size. The results emphasize the importance of accounting for phenology in population counts, where populations are inaccessible at an optimal survey time. We discuss the applications of our research methodology for populations breeding in remote areas and as a baseline for assessing population change. |
format |
Text |
author |
Kliska, Kimberley Southwell, Colin Salton, Marcus Williams, Richard Emmerson, Louise |
author_facet |
Kliska, Kimberley Southwell, Colin Salton, Marcus Williams, Richard Emmerson, Louise |
author_sort |
Kliska, Kimberley |
title |
Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
title_short |
Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
title_full |
Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
title_fullStr |
Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
title_full_unstemmed |
Phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of Antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of Cape petrels in East Antarctica |
title_sort |
phenology-based adjustments improve population estimates of antarctic breeding seabirds: the case of cape petrels in east antarctica |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006014/ https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 |
geographic |
Antarctic East Antarctica Vestfold |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic East Antarctica Vestfold |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Cape Petrels East Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Cape Petrels East Antarctica |
op_source |
R Soc Open Sci |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006014/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 |
op_rights |
© 2022 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211659 |
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Royal Society Open Science |
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9 |
container_issue |
4 |
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1766131928136679424 |