Distribution of wintering Common Eider Somateria mollissima in the Dutch Wadden Sea in relation to available food stocks

Cervencl, Anja; Troost, Karin; Dijkman, E.M.; Jong, Martin de; Smit, C.J.; Leopold, M.F.; Ens, Bruno J.

doi:10.1007/s00227-014-2594-4

Cited by 26 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Eider ducks prefer subtidal mussels as a food source, as subtidal mussels have a thinner shell and higher meat content than intertidal mussels (Steenbergen et al 2005, Cervencl et al 2015. Eider ducks have a substantial impact on the subtidal mussel biomass in the western Wadden Sea, with an estimated consumption of 2.26 kg M. edulis per day and an overwintering population of approximately 59,000 birds (Nilsson 2005, Ekroos et al 2012.…”

Section: Molluscivorous Birdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Eider ducks have a substantial impact on the subtidal mussel biomass in the western Wadden Sea, with an estimated consumption of 2.26 kg M. edulis per day and an overwintering population of approximately 59,000 birds (Nilsson 2005, Ekroos et al 2012. By recording the amount of time the eider duck population forage on culture plots (Cervencl et al 2015(Cervencl et al ) estimated (for 2006(Cervencl et al -2011 an annual cultured mussel consumption between 4.5 and 8.2 Mkg of mussels per year.…”

Section: Molluscivorous Birdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The impact of sea stars and molluscivorous ducks on mussel dynamics in the Wadden Sea has recently been investigated by Agüera (2015) and Cervencl et al (2015). However, shore crabs are also important predators on mussels, both intertidal and subtidal.…”

Section: What Is the Effect Of Shore Crab Predation On Mussel Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, cultured mussels are a suitable food source for birds not only because of the size of the stock, but also because better growth conditions on culture plots will result in mussels with more meat (Capelle et al 2016). Consistently, bird counts confirm that culture plots are vital foraging grounds for eider ducks (Smaal et al 2010, Cervencl et al 2015. Eider ducks prefer medium and large sized mussels above other food sources and are therefore also an important predator on culture plots, annual mussel consumption from culture plots between 2008…”

mentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Loss factors which act more on larger mussels are predation by eider ducks, which are known to be an important loss factor for mussels in culture plots in the western Wadden Sea. A relatively stable wintering eider duck population of 40,000-50,000 individuals forage in this area and might even be dependent on mussels from culture plots in the western Wadden Sea (Kats 2007, Smaal et al 2010, Cervencl et al 2015.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Section: Molluscivorous Birdsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Molluscivorous Birdsmentioning

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Section: What Is the Effect Of Shore Crab Predation On Mussel Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modeling spatiotemporal abundance of mobile wildlife in highly variable environments using boosted GAMLSS hurdle models

Smith

Hofner

Lamb

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Modeling organism distributions from survey data involves numerous statistical challenges, including accounting for zero‐inflation, overdispersion, and selection and incorporation of environmental covariates. In environments with high spatial and temporal variability, addressing these challenges often requires numerous assumptions regarding organism distributions and their relationships to biophysical features. These assumptions may limit the resolution or accuracy of predictions resulting from survey‐based distribution models. We propose an iterative modeling approach that incorporates a negative binomial hurdle, followed by modeling of the relationship of organism distribution and abundance to environmental covariates using generalized additive models (GAM) and generalized additive models for location, scale, and shape (GAMLSS). Our approach accounts for key features of survey data by separating binary (presence‐absence) from count (abundance) data, separately modeling the mean and dispersion of count data, and incorporating selection of appropriate covariates and response functions from a suite of potential covariates while avoiding overfitting. We apply our modeling approach to surveys of sea duck abundance and distribution in Nantucket Sound (Massachusetts, USA), which has been proposed as a location for offshore wind energy development. Our model results highlight the importance of spatiotemporal variation in this system, as well as identifying key habitat features including distance to shore, sediment grain size, and seafloor topographic variation. Our work provides a powerful, flexible, and highly repeatable modeling framework with minimal assumptions that can be broadly applied to the modeling of survey data with high spatiotemporal variability. Applying GAMLSS models to the count portion of survey data allows us to incorporate potential overdispersion, which can dramatically affect model results in highly dynamic systems. Our approach is particularly relevant to systems in which little a priori knowledge is available regarding relationships between organism distributions and biophysical features, since it incorporates simultaneous selection of covariates and their functional relationships with organism responses.

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