Breeding density and population of little auks ( Alle alle ) in a Northwest Greenland colony

Kampp, Kaj; Falk, Knud; Pedersen, Carsten Egevang

doi:10.1007/s003000000115

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…With recent estimates of > 80 million individuals (Gaston & Jones 1998, Isaksen & Gavrilo 2000, Kampp et al 2000, Egevang et al 2003, this species is the most abundant seabird of the North Atlantic and one of the most abundant seabirds in the world (Stempniewicz 2001). It therefore plays a crucial role within Arctic ecosystems, notably in terms of energy and organic matter transfer.…”

Section: Open Pen Access Ccessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic and seasonal variability in the isotopic niche of little auks

Fort¹,

Cherel²,

Harding³

et al. 2010

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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International audienceThe non-breeding season of seabirds is extremely challenging to study because it isoften spent offshore under harsh environmental conditions. We used stable isotope analysis to investigatelittle auk Alle alle feeding ecology throughout the annual cycle. The geographic distribution oflittle auks in the Arctic covers a wide range of oceanographic conditions. We sampled birds from 5different colonies located in the most important breeding areas (Greenland and Spitsbergen) toexamine how individuals breeding in contrasting marine environments differ in their trophic nichethroughout the year. We found differences in summer δ15N values among the colonies, suggestingdifferent target species despite low overall δ15N values in blood, which indicates a diet that is primarilycomposed of copepods. A rise in δ15N values between summer and autumn indicated that adultschanged their trophic status to feed at a higher trophic level. During autumn, a large overlap infeather δ13C values between colonies suggests a common moulting area off Northeast Greenland.During winter, the isotopic signatures show that the trophic status of Greenland and Spitsbergenbirds differed, with birds from Greenland feeding at low trophic levels (probably mostly on copepods),and birds from Spitsbergen maintaining a higher trophic level. These findings highlight contrastingseasonal and regional diet in little auk populations, and reveal possible population overlapsduring the autumn moult. We found substantial trophic variability in little auks, which may indicateunsuspected capabilities to adapt to current, drastic environmental change in the North Atlantic

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Section: Open Pen Access Ccessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographic and seasonal variability in the isotopic niche of little auks

Fort¹,

Cherel²,

Harding³

et al. 2010

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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“…However, population growth is the sum of potential population increase and extrinsic mortality factors. The outstandingly abundant populations of birds in the NOW include at least 15 million breeding pairs of dovekies in the Thule area (Alle alle: Kampp et al 2000), with 30 to 60 million pairs in the whole NOW region (Karnovsky & Hunt 2002). A. alle consumes large Calanus spp.…”

Section: Impact Of Copepod Grazing On Phytoplankton Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Copepod herbivory rate in a large arctic polynya and its relationship to seasonal and spatial variation in copepod and phytoplankton biomass

Saunders¹,

Deibel²,

Stevens³

et al. 2003

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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b), where I = maximum daily ingestion rate and W = individual weight, to test the potential effect of size bias on our estimates of total in situ copepod herbivory, because the size structures of experimental and in situ copepod assemblages were often statistically different. Although these calculations found up to ± 40% difference in our estimate of total in situ copepod herbivory, this had very little effect on the estimates of copepod impact on daily primary production (±1% PP), because copepod biomass was usually low relative to NOW phytoplankton biomass and productivity. During pre-bloom and spring-bloom conditions, total in situ copepod herbivory was low (<10% of PP). After the spring diatom bloom, we measured higher removal rates (~15 and 55% of PP) at 2 southern stations, where copepod biomass was high and PP was relatively low.

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“…They are particularly sensitive to changes occurring at low trophic levels (Nettleship and Birkhead, 1985;Gaston and Jones, 1998) and are outstanding candidates as ecological sentinels of global change (Gjerdrum et al, 2003). They are among the most abundant seabird species in the northern hemisphere and on a worldwide scale [little auk and Brünnich's guillemot population size is estimated to be >80 million and 20 million breeding individuals, respectively (Gaston and Jones, 1998;Kampp et al, 2000;Isaksen and Gavrilo, 2000;Egevang et al, 2003)]. Hence, they play an important role within arctic marine ecological processes, notably in terms of energy transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermodynamic modelling predicts energetic bottleneck for seabirds wintering in the northwest Atlantic

Fort

Porter

Grémillet

2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

111

107

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SUMMARYStudying the energetics of marine top predators such as seabirds is essential to understand processes underlying adult winter survival and its impact on population dynamics. Winter survival is believed to be the single most important life-history trait in long-lived species but its determinants are largely unknown. Seabirds are inaccessible during this season, so conventional metabolic studies are extremely challenging and new approaches are needed. This paper describes and uses a state-of-the-art mechanistic model, Niche Mapper TM , to predict energy expenditure and food requirements of the two main seabird species wintering in the northwest Atlantic. We found that energy demand increased throughout the winter phase in both species. Across this period, mean estimated daily energy requirements were 1306 kJ day -1 for Brünnich's guillemots (Uria lomvia) and 430 kJ day -1 for little auks (Alle alle) wintering off Greenland and Newfoundland. Mean estimated daily food requirements were 547 g wet food day -1 for Brünnich's guillemots, and 289 g wet food day -1 for little auks. For both species and both wintering sites, our model predicts a sharp increase in energy expenditure between November and December, primarily driven by climatic factors such as air temperature and wind speed. These findings strongly suggest the existence of an energetic bottleneck for North Atlantic seabirds towards the end of the year, a challenging energetic phase which might explain recurrent events of winter massmortality, so called 'seabird winter wrecks'. Our study therefore emphasizes the relevance of thermodynamics/biophysical modelling for investigating the energy balance of wintering marine top predators and its interplay with survival and population dynamics in the context of global change.

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Breeding density and population of little auks ( Alle alle ) in a Northwest Greenland colony

Cited by 27 publications

References 5 publications

Geographic and seasonal variability in the isotopic niche of little auks

Geographic and seasonal variability in the isotopic niche of little auks

Copepod herbivory rate in a large arctic polynya and its relationship to seasonal and spatial variation in copepod and phytoplankton biomass

Thermodynamic modelling predicts energetic bottleneck for seabirds wintering in the northwest Atlantic

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