Biologging, remotely-sensed oceanography and the Continuous Plankton Recorder reveal the environmental determinants of a seabird wintering hotspot

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Fort, Jérôme, Beaugrand, Gregory, Grémillet, David, Phillips, Richard
• 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), Laboratoire d’Océanologie et de Géosciences (LOG) - UMR 8187 (LOG), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université du Littoral Côte d'Opale (ULCO)-Université de Lille-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Nord ), British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2012
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; Arctic; Greenland; Alle alle; Calanus finmarchicus; Climate change; East Greenland; little auk; Newfoundland; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00807534; https://hal.science/hal-00807534/document; https://hal.science/hal-00807534/file/Fort%20et%20al.%202012_PLoS%20one.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0041194

International audience Marine environments are greatly affected by climate change, and understanding how this perturbation affects marine vertebrates is a major issue. In this context, it is essential to identify the environmental drivers of animal distribution. Here, we focused on the little auk (Alle alle), one of the world's most numerous seabirds and a major component in Arctic food webs. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we show how little auks adopt specific migratory strategies and balance environmental constraints to optimize their energy budgets. Miniature electronic loggers indicate that after breeding, birds from East Greenland migrate >2000 km to overwinter in a restricted area off Newfoundland. Synoptic data available from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) indicate that this region harbours some of the highest densities of the copepod Calanus finmarchicus found in the North Atlantic during winter. Examination of large-scale climatic and oceanographic data suggests that little auks favour patches of high copepod abundance in areas where air temperature ranges from 0°C to 5°C. These results greatly advance our understanding of animal responses to extreme environmental constraints, and highlight that information on habitat preference is key to identifying critical areas for marine conservation.