Adverse foraging conditions may impact body mass and survival of a high Arctic seabird

• Published in: Oecologia
• Main Authors: Harding, Ann M.A., Welcker, Jorg, Steen, Harald, Hamer, Keith C., Kitaysky, Alexander S, Fort, Jérôme, Talbot, Sandra, Cornick, Leslie, Karnovsky, Nina J., Gabrielsen, Geir W, Grémillet, David
• Other Authors: Alaska Pacific University, Norwegian Polar Institute, Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, University of Leeds, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), 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), Alaska Science Center, United States Geological Survey Reston (USGS), Pomona College
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2011
• Subjects: Body mass; Corticosterone; Little auk; Survival; Tradeoff; [SDV.EE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment; Arctic; Alle alle; little auk
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-01100472; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-1971-7

International audience Tradeoffs between current reproduction andfuture survival are widely recognized, but may only occurwhen food is limited: when foraging conditions arefavorable, parents may be able to reproduce withoutcompromising their own survival. We investigated thesetradeoffs in the little auk (Alle alle), a small seabird with asingle-egg clutch. During 2005–2007, we examined therelationship between body mass and survival of birdsbreeding under contrasting foraging conditions at twoArctic colonies. We used corticosterone levels of breedingadults as a physiological indicator of the foraging conditionsthey encountered during each reproductive season.We found that when foraging conditions were relativelypoor (as reflected in elevated levels of corticosterone),parents ended the reproductive season with low body massand suffered increased post-breeding mortality. A positiverelationship between body mass and post-breeding survivalwas found in one study year; light birds incurred highersurvival costs than heavy birds. The results of this studysuggest that reproducing under poor foraging conditionsmay affect the post-breeding survival of long-lived littleauks. They also have important demographic implicationsbecause even a small change in adult survival may have alarge effect on populations of long-lived species.