Common Loon (Gavia immer)

Evers, David C.; Paruk, James D.; McIntyre, Judith W.; Barr, Jack F.

doi:10.2173/bow.comloo.01

Cited by 12 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…In summary, 7 of the 12 negatively trending taxa are benthivorous on their Salish Sea wintering grounds; Common Loon (piscivorous) and Scaup spp. (omnivorous) also feed in the benthic environment in winter (Evers et al 2020, Kessel et al 2020. The guild-specific analysis further corroborates the observed species-specific trends found in benthivores in the Salish Sea (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Twenty years of coastal waterbird trends suggest regional patterns of environmental pressure in British Columbia, Canada

Ethier¹,

Davidson²,

Sorenson³

et al. 2020

ACE

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Waterbirds are often used as indicators of ecosystem function across broad spatial and temporal scales. Resolving which species are declining and the ecological characteristics they have in common can offer insights into ecosystem changes and their underlying mechanisms. Using 20 years of citizen science data collected by the British Columbia Coastal Waterbird Survey, we examine species-specific trends in abundance of 50 species in the Salish Sea and 37 species along the outer Pacific Ocean coast that we considered to form the core wintering coastal bird community of British Columbia, Canada. Further, we explore whether ecological commonalities increase the likelihood of a species undergoing declines by testing the hypotheses that waterbird abundance trends are influenced by dietary specialization and migration distance to breeding grounds. Results suggest that most populations are stable (i.e., temporal trends are not significant) in both the Salish Sea (36 of 50 spp.) and Pacific coast (32 of 37 spp.) regions. Twelve species displayed significant decline trends in the Salish Sea, whereas two had significant increases. Along the Pacific coast, only three species displayed significant decline trends, and two significant increases. This result is corroborated by guild-specific trends indicating that waterbirds occupying the Salish Sea are faring significantly worse than those residing along the outer coastal regions, almost irrespective of dietary specialization or migration distance. Our results provide evidence that differential environmental pressures between the inner and outer coastal regions may be causing overall loss of wintering waterbirds within, or abundance shifts away from, the Salish Sea. Potential mechanisms responsible for these observed patterns are discussed, including environmental (e.g., climate) and human-induced (e.g., nutrient and chemical pollution) pressures. Collaborative, inter-disciplinary research priorities to help understand these mechanisms are suggested. Vingt ans de suivi d'oiseaux aquatiques côtiers montrent des tendances régionales de pressions environnementales en Colombie-Britannique, Canada RÉSUMÉ. Les oiseaux aquatiques sont souvent utilisés comme indicateurs du fonctionnement des écosystèmes à de larges échelles spatiales et temporelles. La détermination des espèces en diminution et des caractéristiques écologiques qu'elles ont en commun permet de se faire une idée des changements dans les écosystèmes et des mécanismes sous-jacents. Au moyen de 20 ans de données de science citoyenne collectées lors du Coastal Waterbird Survey de la Colombie-Britannique, nous avons examiné les tendances dans l'abondance de 50 espèces dans la mer des Salish et de 37 espèces plus au large de la côte de l'océan Pacifique que nous avons considérées comme formant le noyau de la communauté d'oiseaux côtiers hivernant de la Colombie-Britannique, au Canada. En outre, nous avons étudié si les traits communs écologiques augmentaient la probabilité qu'une espèce subisse une baisse en testant les hypoth...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Twenty years of coastal waterbird trends suggest regional patterns of environmental pressure in British Columbia, Canada

Ethier¹,

Davidson²,

Sorenson³

et al. 2020

ACE

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“…wNAO0; Sandvik et al, 2005). Indeed, prior work has established a connection between population dynamics of Atlantic croaker Micropogonias undulatus, one of the primary food sources for wintering common loons (Evers et al, 2020), and the NAO (Hare & Able, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, common loon productivity in southern Ontario has declined markedly since the early 1980s (Bianchini et al, 2020), alongside negative trends in the number of breeding loons across much of its southern range (Evers et al, 2020). Few studies have explored simultaneous impacts of climate and land-use on adult survival in waterbirds (but see Kéry et al, 2006), yet this guild is one of the most vulnerable to climate change (Bateman et al, 2020) and already in great conservation need.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also evaluated a broad-scale climate covariate, the winter North Atlantic Oscillation index (hereafter NAO; Hurrell et al, 2003). The NAO is a driver of climate variability that has been shown to affect the marine environment and ecosystems along the eastern coast of the United States and Canada (Zipkin et al, 2010), where common loons from the Upper Midwest overwinter (Evers et al, 2020). A positive NAO index indicates warmer, wetter winters in the eastern US, whereas a negative NAO index indicates cold and snowy conditions (Hurrell et al, 2003).…”

Section: Climate and Land-use Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We assumed that the minimum age at first breeding was 4 years old, survival rates between sexes were identical (Grear et al, 2009;Mitro et al, 2008), and annual apparent survival ( ad ) was nearly ageconstant for birds ≥3 years old (Grear et al, 2009; see Appendix S1 for details on senescence), consistent with natural history accounts and resighting of marked loons returning to the breeding grounds in the third year following hatch (Evers et al, 2020;Piper et al, 2012). Thus, our model incorporated transition to the adult stage after the third winter, but breeding was delayed until age 4 (Figure 1); data were insufficient to estimate recruitment probabilities at multiple ages via a multistate capture-recapture framework.…”

Section: Latent Population Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interrelated impacts of climate and land‐use change on a widespread waterbird

Saunders

Piper

Farr

et al. 2021

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Together climate and land-use change play a crucial role in determining species distribution and abundance, but measuring the simultaneous impacts of these processes on current and future population trajectories is challenging due to time lags, interactive effects and data limitations. Most approaches that relate multiple global change drivers to population changes have been based on occurrence or count data alone. 2. We leveraged three long-term (1995-2019) datasets to develop a coupled integrated population model-Bayesian population viability analysis (IPM-BPVA) to project future survival and reproductive success for common loons Gavia immer in northern Wisconsin, USA, by explicitly linking vital rates to changes in climate and land use. 3. The winter North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), a broad-scale climate index, immediately preceding the breeding season and annual changes in developed land cover within breeding areas both had strongly negative influences on adult survival.

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Factors influencing incubation behavior and nesting success of yellow‐billed loons in Arctic Alaska

et al. 2023

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Reductions in nest attendance can increase predation risk and, therefore, reduce nesting success of ground‐nesting birds. We recorded the incubation behavior, nest predators, and nesting success of yellow‐billed loons (Gavia adamsii) at 2 adjacent study areas with differing amounts of industrial activity on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska, USA, during 2008–2015 and 2019. Successful pairs had higher incubation constancies (97.3 ± 1.7% [SE], n = 96 nests) than failed pairs (91.6 ± 3.1%, n = 79 nests) and took fewer and shorter recesses than failed pairs. The intrusion of conspecifics into territories significantly lowered the daily incubation constancy of nesting pairs. Daily incubation constancy also declined as the daily maximum temperature increased, especially during periods with little wind. Both conditions contributed to nest failure. Predation was the primary cause of nest failure, with glaucous gulls (Larus hyperboreus) and parasitic jaegers (Stercorarius parasiticus) accounting for 41% of the nest failures. These avian predators took advantage of unattended nests, underscoring the consequence of disrupting incubation behavior. In both study areas, nest survival decreased as recess frequency increased. In the Colville Delta study area, loons with territories composed of separate nesting and brood‐rearing lakes had lower nest survival than loons that used 1 lake for both activities. In the National Petroleum Reserve‐Alaska study area (NPR‐A), loons nesting on shorelines and peninsulas had lower nest survival than those nesting on islands and nest survival decreased as the proportion of days with intruders increased. The overall probability of a nest hatching ≥1 egg in the Colville Delta study area was 0.40 (95% CI = 0.26–0.54) and was 0.68 (95% CI = 0.40–0.91) in the NPR‐A study area. Our results demonstrate the importance of nest attendance by yellow‐billed loons in warding off nest predators on the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska and provide a mechanism that shows how a warming Arctic climate could negatively affect yellow‐billed loons.

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Common Loon (Gavia immer)

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Twenty years of coastal waterbird trends suggest regional patterns of environmental pressure in British Columbia, Canada

Twenty years of coastal waterbird trends suggest regional patterns of environmental pressure in British Columbia, Canada

Interrelated impacts of climate and land‐use change on a widespread waterbird

Factors influencing incubation behavior and nesting success of yellow‐billed loons in Arctic Alaska

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