Individual Spatial Consistency and Dietary Flexibility in the Migratory Behavior of Northern Gannets Wintering in the Northeast Atlantic

Grecian, W. James; Williams, Hannah J.; Votier, Stephen C.; Bearhop, Stuart; Cleasby, Ian R.; Grémillet, David; Hamer, Keith C.; Nuz, Mélanie Le; Lescroël, Amélie; Newton, Jason; Patrick, Samantha C.; Phillips, Richard A.; Wakefield, Ewan D.; Bodey, Thomas W.

doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00214

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Actually, ‘Least Concern’ species are largely affected by threats at a global level (Dias et al 2019). The Portuguese shelf waters represent an important area for at least some Northern Gannet populations during their migratory and wintering periods (Kubetzki et al 2009, Grecian et al 2019). More information is needed to investigate the effects of bycatch on the demographic parameters of those populations, namely on recruitment of new breeders, since our data strongly suggest that immatures are more susceptible to bycatch than adult birds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A contribution to reducing bycatch in a high priority area for seabird conservation in Portugal

Oliveira¹,

Almeida²,

Alonso³

et al. 2020

Bird Conservation International

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Summary Bycatch is one of the main threats to marine biodiversity, affecting ocean ecosystems at a worldwide scale. The main focus of bycatch studies has been on the impact of larger vessels, with few studies assessing the impact of artisanal fisheries. Moreover, bycatch studies are often limited to a small number of marine regions, and significant gaps still exist in our knowledge of the spatial and temporal patterns of seabird bycatch. Here we present a multi-approach method to accurately quantify seabird bycatch driven by small- and medium-sized fishing fleets operating in a high priority area for seabird conservation on the Portuguese mainland. Results of three mitigation measures to reduce seabird bycatch on fishing gear where seabird bycatch is most likely to occur were also tested: high contrast panels in bottom gillnets, black hooks in demersal longlines and a bird scaring device in purse seines. The efficacy, acceptance, and economic viability were tested for each mitigation measure. Sixty-seven individuals of seven seabird species were bycaught during 295 monitored fishing trips between 2015 and 2018. Bycatch occurred mainly in demersal longlines (0.07 birds fishing event-1), followed by purse seines (0.02 birds fishing event-1) and bottom gillnets (0.01 birds fishing event-1). Nevertheless, the bird scaring device caused birds to interact less with the vessel (the presence of gulls was reduced by 11%), thus decreasing the likelihood of bycatch. This device has proved to be low-cost (representing less than 5% income of a single day’s landings) and easy to implement, being also well accepted by purse seine fishermen. It was not possible to evaluate the efficacy of high contrast panels and black hooks, as no bycatch events were recorded during trials.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A contribution to reducing bycatch in a high priority area for seabird conservation in Portugal

Oliveira¹,

Almeida²,

Alonso³

et al. 2020

Bird Conservation International

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“…We have also shown that gouramis display repeatable inter-individual differences in latency to shoot, with related consequences on shooting performance and success. This is increasingly expected as such inter-individual differences in behaviour can play an important role in the ecology and evolution of foraging behaviours across species (Dall et al, 2012;Toscano et al, 2016;Metcalfe et al, 2016;Troxell-Smith and Mella, 2017;Snijders et al, 2018;Grecian et al, 2019;Hansen et al, 2020). Such repeatable inter-individual differences in latency to shoot have been observed in archerfish, (Jones et al, 2018) with analogous differences in latency to attack in other predatory fish (Szopa-Comley et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-range hunters: exploring the function and constraints of water shooting in dwarf gouramis

Jones

Klump

Abaurrea

et al. 2021

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Ballistic predation is a rare foraging adaptation: in fishes, most attention has focused on a single genus, the archerfish, known to manipulate water to shoot down prey above the water surface. However, several gourami species also exhibit apparently similar ‘shooting’ behaviour, spitting water up to 5cm above the surface. In a series of experiments, we explored the shooting behaviour and aspects of its significance as a foraging ability in the dwarf gourami (Trichogaster lalius). We investigated sex differences in shooting abilities as gourami shooting may be related to the sex-specific bubble nest manufacture - where males mix air and water at the surface to form bubbles - finding that actually both sexes are equally able to shoot and learn to shoot a novel target. In a second experiment, we presented untrained gouramis with opportunities to shoot at live prey and found they successfully shot down both fruit flies and crickets. Finally, we explored the effect of target height on shooting performance to establish potential constraints of shooting as a foraging ability. The frequency of attempted shots and success of hitting targets decreased with height while latency to shoot increased. We also observed that repeatable individual differences account for variation in these measures of shooting performance. Together our results provide evidence that gourami shooting has a foraging function analogous to that of archerfish. Gourami shooting may serve as an example of convergent evolution and provide opportunities for comparative studies into the, yet unexplored, ecology and evolution of shooting in fishes.

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“…among sexes [60], ages and individuals in migratory behaviour [61]. Recently, GLS loggers were used to study migration strategies of gannets nesting in the Northeast Atlantic [10,23,24,26,60] and Northwest Atlantic [25]. These loggers also made it possible to track long-term migration to assess marine pollution impact (e.g.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…banding and observations of birds at sea [46], that individuals vary in migration distance, spanning the area from the northern part of the American Atlantic coast to the Gulf of Mexico, but with no resident individuals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where waters are generally covered with ice during the winter. Across the breeding range of the species, migration strategies and non-breeding destinations are highly repeatable over consecutive years [10,25,26], and the net cost-benefit appears to be similar for all wintering areas in terms of energetics [10].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, a cost-benefit approach applied to a differential migrant may provide insights into the mechanisms driving the migration strategy of individuals [10,14] but see Newton [15] The Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus) is a plunge-diving predator that nests in large colonies and has a wide breeding distribution in the North Atlantic. High nest-site fidelity, large size and tolerance of disturbance makes this species a very good model for the study of migration using remote-monitoring devices [10,[23][24][25][26]. Collectively, these studies have shown that gannets (a) use oriented migration (as opposed to dispersive migration) to reach alternative wintering quarters used by particular colonies, (b) are highly philopatric to their wintering areas from year to year, and (c) time their departure from breeding and wintering areas depending on distance to their destination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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So far, so good… Similar fitness consequences and overall energetic costs for short and long-distance migrants in a seabird

Pelletier

Seyer

Garthe³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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Although there is a consensus about the evolutionary drivers of animal migration, considerable work is necessary to identify the mechanisms that underlie the great variety of strategies observed in nature. The study of differential migration offers unique opportunities to identify such mechanisms and allows comparisons of the costs and benefits of migration. The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of short and long-distance migrations, and fitness consequences, in a long-lived seabird species. We combined demographic monitoring (survival, phenology, hatching success) of 58 Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) breeding on Bonaventure Island (Canada) and biologging technology (Global Location Sensor or GLS loggers) to estimate activity and energy budgets during the nonbreeding period for three different migration strategies: to the Gulf of Mexico (GM), southeast (SE) or northeast (NE) Atlantic coast of the U.S. Survival, timing of arrival at the colony and hatching success are similar for short (NE, SE) and long-distance (GM) migrants. Despite similar fitness consequences, we found, as expected, that the overall energetic cost of migration is higher for long-distance migrants, although the daily cost during migration was similar between strategies. In contrast, daily maintenance and thermoregulation costs were lower for GM migrants in winter, where sea-surface temperature of the GM is 4-7 o C warmer than SE and NE. In addition, GM migrants tend to fly 30 min less per day in their wintering area than other migrants. Considering lower foraging effort and lower thermoregulation costs during winter for long-distance migrants, this suggests that the energetic benefits during the winter of foraging in the GM outweigh any negative consequences of the longerdistance migration. These results support the notion that the costs and benefits of short and long-distance migration is broadly equal on an annual basis, i.e. there are no apparent carry-over effects in this long-lived bird species, probably because of the favourable conditions in the furthest wintering area.

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Individual Spatial Consistency and Dietary Flexibility in the Migratory Behavior of Northern Gannets Wintering in the Northeast Atlantic

Cited by 18 publications

References 93 publications

A contribution to reducing bycatch in a high priority area for seabird conservation in Portugal

A contribution to reducing bycatch in a high priority area for seabird conservation in Portugal

Short-range hunters: exploring the function and constraints of water shooting in dwarf gouramis

So far, so good… Similar fitness consequences and overall energetic costs for short and long-distance migrants in a seabird

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