Migration and wintering of a declining seabird, the thick-billed murre  Uria lomvia , on an ocean basin scale: Conservation implications

Frederiksen, Morten; Descamps, Sébastien; Erikstad, Kjell Einar; Gaston, Anthony J.; Gilchrist, H. Grant; Grémillet, David; Johansen, Kasper Lambert; Kolbeinsson, Yann; Linnebjerg, Jannie Fries; Mallory, Mark L.; Tranquilla, Laura A. McFarlane; Merkel, Flemming; Montevecchi, William A.; Mosbech, Anders; Reiertsen, Tone Kirstin; Robertson, Gregory J.; Steen, Harald B.; Strøm, Hallvard; Þórarinsson, Þorkell Lindberg

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2016.05.011

Cited by 86 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Guillemots may have spent the winter in different areas in other years. Frederiksen et al (2016) estimated that millions of breeding-age guillemots from Svalbard colonies winter in the western Atlantic, including similar areas used by guillemots breeding at Bjørnøya (i.e. around Iceland and northeast Greenland), but also different ones (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a shift has affected many marine organisms, from plank ton to fish, seabirds and marine mammals (Hátún et al 2005, Hátún 2009), through trophic cascades or amplification (Irons et al 2008, Kirby & Beaugrand 2009). Furthermore, the synchronization of population declines in Brünnich's guillemots breeding in Iceland and southern Greenland suggests that population changes may have been driven by events at their common wintering grounds (Frederiksen et al 2016).…”

Section: Open Pen Access Ccessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of North Atlantic seabird demography: a case study with Brünnich’s guillemots in Svalbard

Fluhr¹,

Strøm²,

Pradel³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Open Pen Access Ccessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of North Atlantic seabird demography: a case study with Brünnich’s guillemots in Svalbard

Fluhr¹,

Strøm²,

Pradel³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…Seabirds generally, but not always, moult in the nonbreeding period to avoid overlap with other energetically de manding processes, such as reproduction or migration (Bridge 2006, Catry et al 2013b). This may result in flight im pair ment, which would explain a decrease in activity levels in the winter in some species (Cherel et al 2016), or in flightlessness, which may drive movements (particularly by auks) to specific moulting areas (Linnebjerg et al 2013, Frederiksen et al 2016.…”

Section: Breeding Stage and Season (Breeding Vs Nonbreeding Period)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causes and consequences of individual variability and specialization in foraging and migration strategies of seabirds

Phillips¹,

Lewis²,

González‐Solís³

et al. 2017

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

148

172

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Technological advances in recent years have seen an explosion of tracking and stable isotope studies of seabirds, often involving repeated measures from the same individuals. This wealth of new information has allowed the examination of the extensive variation among and within individuals in foraging and migration strategies (movements, habitat use, feeding behaviour, trophic status, etc.) in unprecedented detail. Variation is underpinned by key life-history or state variables such as sex, age, breeding stage and residual differences among individuals (termed 'individual specialization'). This variation has major implications for our understanding of seabird ecology, because it affects the use of resources, level of intra-specific competition and niche partitioning. In addition, it determines the responses of individuals and populations to the environment and the susceptibility to major anthropogenic threats. Here we review the effects of season (breeding vs. nonbreeding periods), breeding stage, breeding status, age, sex and individual specialization on foraging and migration strategies, as well as the consequences for population dynamics and conservation.

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“…Based on the approach of Frederiksen et al (2016), we ran latitudinal adjustments on our data, the details of which are explained in Supplementary Material (S2). Further processing followed the methods outlined by Burke et al (2015) involving a two position smoothing, and exclusion of data points representing improbable daily movements (i.e., >500 km/day; Hedd et al, 2011;McFarlane-Tranquilla et al, 2013).…”

Section: Spatial Data Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking the Bite Out of Winter: Common Murres (Uria aalge) Push Their Dive Limits to Surmount Energy Constraints

Burke

Montevecchi

2018

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Diving seabirds that overwinter at high latitudes experience persistent cold exposure, short days and associated declines in ocean productivity that can challenge their ability to balance daily energy budgets. We used dive-immersion geo-locators to test the hypothesis that pursuit-diving Common murres (Uria aalge) will respond to the challenges of winter in the North Atlantic through increased daily energy expenditures (DEE) that will be met by increased foraging effort and adjustments in dive tactics. Largely flightless in winter (<5% of daylight hours flying), murres spent most of their time on the water (>85% resting and swimming). Accordingly, when sea surface temperatures (SST) were consistently near freezing in late winter (1.9 ± 0.8 • C), mean DEE (2463.2 ± 10.9 kJ day −1 ) exceeded the theoretical limit to sustainable energy expenditure in vertebrates (i.e., 7 X Basal Metabolic Rate or 2450 kJ day −1 for murres). Consistently deep (70% >50 m) and long dives in late winter, 38% of which exceeded their calculated aerobic dive limit indicate that targeted prey was distributed in deep (dark) waters. Consequently, foraging was largely diurnal; likely because capture efficiency of deep-water prey is poor under low light. Murres responded to these late winter time and energy constraints with a nearly two-fold increase in daily time spent diving (95.2 ± 5.6 and 178.3 ± 6.3 min day −1 during early and late winter, respectively), an increase in dive bout frequency and duration, and correspondingly less time resting between bouts. Uniquely adapted for deep-diving, pursuit-diving can push their dive limits to maximize daily energy intake when energy demands are high and prey are distributed in deep water. Our study highlights late winter as an extremely challenging phase in the annual cycle of North Atlantic murres and provides critical insights into the behavioral mechanisms underlying their winter survival.

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Migration and wintering of a declining seabird, the thick-billed murre Uria lomvia , on an ocean basin scale: Conservation implications

Cited by 86 publications

References 60 publications

Weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of North Atlantic seabird demography: a case study with Brünnich’s guillemots in Svalbard

Weakening of the subpolar gyre as a key driver of North Atlantic seabird demography: a case study with Brünnich’s guillemots in Svalbard

Causes and consequences of individual variability and specialization in foraging and migration strategies of seabirds

Taking the Bite Out of Winter: Common Murres (Uria aalge) Push Their Dive Limits to Surmount Energy Constraints

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