Variation and correlation in the timing of breeding of North Atlantic seabirds across multiple scales

• Published in: Journal of Animal Ecology
• Main Authors: Keogan, Katharine, Daunt, Francis, Wanless, Sarah, Phillips, Richard A., Alvarez, David, Anker-Nilssen, Tycho, Barrett, Robert T., Bech, Claus, Becker, Peter H., Berglund, Per-Arvid, Bouwhuis, Sandra, Burr, Zofia M., Chastel, Olivier, Christensen-Dalsgaard, Signe, Descamps, Sebastien, Diamond, Tony, Elliott, Kyle, Erikstad, Kjell-Einar, Harris, Mike, Hentati-Sundberg, Jonas, Heubeck, Martin, Kress, Stephen W., Langset, Magdalene, Lorentsen, Svein-Håkon, Major, Heather L, Mallory, Mark, Mellor, Mick, Miles, Will T. S., Moe, Børge, Mostello, Carolyn, Newell, Mark, Nisbet, Ian, Reiertsen, Tone Kirstin, Rock, Jennifer, Shannon, Paula, Varpe, Øystein, Lewis, Sue, Phillimore, Albert B.
• Other Authors: University of St Andrews.Scottish Oceans Institute, University of St Andrews.School of Biology
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Breeding time; Climate change; Macroecology; Multispecies; Phenology; GC Oceanography; QH301 Biology; DAS; SDG 13 - Climate Action; MCC; GC; QH301; Canada; Tromsø; Bedford; New Bedford; North Atlantic; Norwegian Polar Institute
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10023/27803; https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13758

Funding: The authors also thank funding sources: the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC; UK National Capability award number NE/R016429/1 as part of the UKSCaPE programme); Joint Nature Conservatio Committee (JNCC); Environment and Climate Change Canada; Natural Resources Canada; New Bedford Harbor Trustee Council; The Norwegian Environment Agency (and its predecessors), the SEAPOP programme (www.seapop.no) and its key institutions: The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, The Norwegian Polar Institute and Tromsø University Museum and the French Polar Institute. 1. Timing of breeding, an important driver of fitness in many populations, is widely studied in the context of global change, yet despite considerable efforts to identify environmental drivers of seabird nesting phenology, for most populations we lack evidence of strong drivers. Here we adopt an alternative approach, examining the degree to which different populations positively covary in their annual phenology to infer whether phenological responses to environmental drivers are likely to be (i) shared across species at a range of spatial scales, (ii) shared across populations of a species, or (iii) idiosyncratic to populations. 2. We combined 51 long-term datasets on breeding phenology spanning 50 years from nine seabird species across 29 North Atlantic sites and examined the extent to which different populations share early versus late breeding seasons depending on a hierarchy of spatial scales comprising breeding site, small-scale region, large-scale region and the whole North Atlantic. 3. In about a third of cases we found laying dates of populations of different species sharing the same breeding site or small-scale breeding region were positively correlated, which is consistent with the hypothesis that they share phenological responses to the same environmental conditions. In comparison we found no evidence for positive phenological covariation among populations across species aggregated at larger spatial scales. 4. In general we found ...