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

• 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

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.