Winter extratropical cyclone influence on seabird survival: variation between and within common eider populations

• Published in: Marine Ecology Progress Series
• Main Authors: Guéry, Loreleï, Descamps, Sébastien, Hodges, K., I., Pradel, Roger, Moe, B, Hanssen, S., A., Erikstad, K., E., Gabrielsen, G., W., Gilchrist, H., G., Jenouvrier, Stéphanie, Bêty, Joel
• Other Authors: Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: Seabirds: Extreme weather and climatic event; marine vertebrates; multi-event models; hidden states and mixture models; NAO; Arctic; inter and intra-population heterogeneity; migratory tactics; Somateria mollissima; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Common Eider; Global warming; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation; Northern Norway; Subarctic; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02297782; https://hal.science/hal-02297782/document; https://hal.science/hal-02297782/file/Manuscript-Guery-revision2_final.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13066

International audience Extratropical cyclones (ETCs) play a primary role in determining the variation in local weather and marine conditions in the mid-latitudes. ETCs have a broad range of intensities, from benign to extreme, and their paths, frequency, and intensity may change with global warming. However, how ETCs, and cyclones in general, currently affect marine wildlife is poorly studied and remains substantially unexplored. To understand how winter ETCs affect the inter-annual variability of adult seabird survival, we used capture-mark-recapture datasets collected in 2 arctic (northern Canada and Svalbard) and 1 subarctic (northern Norway) breeding populations of common eider Somateria mollissima over periods of 19, 16 and 30 yr, respectively. We found significant negative correlations between winter ETC activity and female eider survival, but different mechanisms appear to be involved in the different studied populations. The number of winter ETCs, extreme or not, was linked to survival without lags in the Canadian population, whereas amplitude and duration of extreme winter ETCs (with time lags) impacted female adult survival in the Svalbard and northern Norway eider breeding populations. We hypothesise that fjords in the wintering grounds of some populations act as climatic shelters and provide natural protection, and hence could partly explain inter-population heterogeneity in the response to ETCs. We suggest that ETCs represent a likely mechanism behind the frequently reported relationship between North Atlantic Oscillation and seabird survival in the North Atlantic. KEY WORDS: Extreme weather and climatic events · Multi-event models · Hidden states and mixture models · NAO · Arctic · Inter and intra-population heterogeneity · Migratory tactics Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher