Will climate change affect the survival of tropical and subtropical species? Predictions based on Bulwer's petrel populations in the NE Atlantic Ocean

• Published in: Science of The Total Environment
• Main Authors: Cruz-Flores, Marta, Pradel, Roger, Bried, Joël, Militão, Teresa, Neves, Verónica, González-Solís, Jacob, Ramos, Raül
• Other Authors: Universitat de Barcelona (UB), LIttoral ENvironnement et Sociétés (LIENSs), La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat - Biodiversity Research Institute Barcelona, Spain (IRBio UB), Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM), Université de Montpellier (UM), OKEANOS, Instituto de Investigação em Ciências do Mar, Universidade dos Açores, Horta, MCF was supported by a predoctoral grant from the University ofBarcelona and the H2020 Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions (H2020-MSCAIF-2020, ref. 101024166). JB was supported by the Fundação para a Ciênciae a Tecnologia (project ref. PTDC/BIABDE/67286/2006), the Fundo Europeude Desenvolvimento Regional (programme COMPETE, ref. FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-007061) and the Programme MoniAves (launched by the RegionalDirectorate of the Environment of the Azores and coordinated by R.S. Santos).VN was supported by a Investigador Mar-AZ contract (01-1045-FEDER-000140, PO Açores 2020) and by a postdoctoral grant from the RegionalFund for Science and Technology (FRCT/M3.1.a/F/072/2016). RR was supportedby a postdoctoral Ramón y Cajal contract of the Spanish MINECO(RYC-2017-22055). This study was funded by MINECO (CGL2006-01315/BOS, CGL2009-11278/BOS, CGL2013-42585-P and CGL2016-78530-R),Fondos FEDER, the Research Executive Agency (European Commission,FP7-PEOPLE-2013-CIG, 618841), the MAVA Foundation pour la nature(MAVA17022)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: Sea surface temperature SST; Demography; IPCC emission scenarios; Capture-mark-recapture CMR; Bulweria bulwerii; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03949678; https://hal.science/hal-03949678/document; https://hal.science/hal-03949678/file/Cruz-Flores%20et%20al.%202022.%20STOTEN.%20Will%20climate%20change%20affect%20the%20survival%20of%20tropical%20and%20subtropical%20species%20Predictions%20based%20on%20Bulwer%27s.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157352

International audience Climate change has repeatedly been shown to impact the demography and survival ofmarine top predators. However, most evidence comes from single populations of widely distributed species, limited mainly to polar and subpolar environments. Here, we aimed to evaluate the influence of environmental conditions on the survival of a tropical and migratory seabird over the course of its annual cycle.We used capture-mark-recapture data fromthree populations of Bulwer's petrel (Bulweria bulwerii) spread across the NE Atlantic Ocean, from the Azores, Canary, and Cabo Verde Islands (including temperate to tropical zones). We also inferred how the survival of this seabird might be affected under different climatic scenarios, defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the environmental variables whose effect we evaluated (North Atlantic Oscillation index, Southern Oscillation Index, Sea Surface Temperature [SST] and wind speed), SST estimated for the breeding area and season was the variable with the greatest influence on adult survival. Negative effects of SST increase emerged across the three populations,most likely through indirect trophicweb interactions. Unfortunately, our study also shows that the survival of Bulwer's petrel will be profoundly affected by the different scenarios of climate change, even with the most optimistic trajectory involving the lowest greenhouse gas emission. Furthermore, for the first time, our study predicts stronger impacts of climate change on tropical populations than on subtropical and temperate ones. This result highlights the devastating effect that climate changemay also have on tropical areas, and the importance of considering multi-population approaches when evaluating its impacts which may differ across species distributions.