Extreme ecological response of a seabird community to unprecedented sea ice cover

International audience Climate change has been predicted to reduce Antarctic sea ice but, instead, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has expanded over the past 30 years, albeit with contrasted regional changes. Here we report a recent extreme event in sea ice conditions in East Antarctica and investiga...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Royal Society Open Science
Main Authors: Barbraud, C., Delord, K., Weimerskirch, H.
Other Authors: Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC), La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2015
Subjects:
skuas
petrels
sea ice
penguins
breeding
Antarctic
[SDE]Environmental Sciences
D'Urville Sea
Dumont d'Urville
Dumont-d'Urville
East Antarctica
Antarc*
Antarctica
Dumont D'Urville Sea
Sea ice
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01304693
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.140456
Description
Summary:International audience Climate change has been predicted to reduce Antarctic sea ice but, instead, sea ice surrounding Antarctica has expanded over the past 30 years, albeit with contrasted regional changes. Here we report a recent extreme event in sea ice conditions in East Antarctica and investigate its consequences on a seabird community. In early 2014, the Dumont d'Urville Sea experienced the highest magnitude sea ice cover (76.8%) event on record (1982-2013: range 11.3-65.3%; mean±95% confidence interval: 27.7% (23.1-32.2%)). Catastrophic effects were detected in the breeding output of all sympatric seabird species, with a total failure for two species. These results provide a new view crucial to predictive models of species abundance and distribution as to how extreme sea ice events might impact an entire community of top predators in polar marine ecosystems in a context of expanding sea ice in eastern Antarctica.

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