Contrasting population trends of piscivorous seabirds in the Pribilof Islands: A 30-year perspective

Byrd, G. Vernon; Schmutz, Joel A.; Renner, Heather M.

doi:10.1016/j.dsr2.2008.04.004

Cited by 42 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Depression of seabird productivity cannot be tied to long-term trends in the abundance of any of the species, trends that vary among species and islands (67)(68)(69)(70)85). However, the combination of fewer birds attempting to nest in odd years; fewer eggs being laid, and later, by those that do attempt to nest; and poorer reproductive success by some species raises questions for the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change, pink salmon, and the nexus between bottom-up and top-down forcing in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea

Springer

Vliet²

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Climate change in the last century was associated with spectacular growth of many wild Pacific salmon stocks in the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, apparently through bottom-up forcing linking meteorology to ocean physics, water temperature, and plankton production. One species in particular, pink salmon, became so numerous by the 1990s that they began to dominate other species of salmon for prey resources and to exert top-down control in the open ocean ecosystem. Information from long-term monitoring of seabirds in the Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea reveals that the sphere of influence of pink salmon is much larger than previously known. Seabirds, pink salmon, other species of salmon, and by extension other higher-order predators, are tightly linked ecologically and must be included in international management and conservation policies for sustaining all species that compete for common, finite resource pools. These data further emphasize that the unique 2-y cycle in abundance of pink salmon drives interannual shifts between two alternate states of a complex marine ecosystem.ocean ecology | exploitative competition | consumer front | interaction strength | carrying capacity P redator control of community structure and ecosystem function became a tenet of intertidal and nearshore marine ecology following early studies of Paine and others (1-3), yet with few exceptions (4, 5), until more recent times the idea has been less well appreciated for open oceans. Growing attention now is being paid to the overexploitation of pelagic species, particularly those at higher trophic levels currently and in the past, and effects on ocean ecosystems of the loss, or development, of top-down forcing (6-12).The prevailing view has long held that most biological change in ocean ecosystems, apart from human exploitation, is driven from the bottom up (13-16). One striking example that has been linked to bottom-up processes driven by climate change is the burgeoning abundance of wild Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), and in particular pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), in the subarctic North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (SNPO/BS). Underpinning the notion initially were studies that found (i) strong coherence between decadal patterns in the Aleutian Low pressure system, which exerts a large influence over climate in the North Pacific Ocean, and patterns in salmon production across a broad region of the SNPO/BS (17, 18); (ii) decadal patterns in primary production that could be explained by the effect of the Aleutian Low pressure system on basin scale wind fields (19); and (iii) decadal patterns in zooplankton, squid, and pelagic fish production that also were correlated with meteorological forcing over the North Pacific Ocean and consistent with patterns in primary production (20). Thus, the general explanation for waxing and waning abundances of salmon over the record in the 20th century was that physical forcing by shifts in the strength and position of the Aleutian Low altered winds, ocean temperatures, and primary and sec...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change, pink salmon, and the nexus between bottom-up and top-down forcing in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea

Springer

Vliet²

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…A minimum of six plots were selected at scattered locations at each colony, and each plot was comprised of 20-30 nests. Nests were checked every 3-6 days, and chicks were considered to have fledged if they disappeared from the nest-site more than 15 d after hatching (Byrd et al, 2008a;Gaston and Jones, 1998).…”

Section: Fledging Successmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The closer proximity of St. George to the continental shelf-break may buffer birds from changes in food availability on the shelf, whereas birds on St. Paul may be more vulnerable to climate effects on food resources in the shelf regions (Byrd et al, 2008a(Byrd et al, , 2008b. There is accumulating evidence for changes in biological communities associated with ecosystem shifts in the Bering Sea (Grebmeier et al, 2006), and it has been suggested that the prolonged regimes observed during the last decades may be detrimental to populations of seabirds and northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) breeding at the Pribilof Islands (Stabeno et al, 2012).…”

Section: Foraging Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does location really matter? An inter-colony comparison of seabirds breeding at varying distances from productive oceanographic features in the Bering Sea

Harding

Paredes

Suryan

et al. 2013

Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography

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a b s t r a c tCentral place foragers, such as breeding seabirds, need to commute between their nests and foraging grounds, thus close proximity of the breeding colony to productive oceanographic features might be beneficial for seabird reproduction. We tested this hypothesis by investigating the at-sea foraging and breeding behavior of thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia) nesting at three colonies (Bogoslof, St. Paul, and St. George Islands) in the Bering Sea located at different distances from the productive continental shelf-break. We found that distances to feeding areas differed only during night trips among colonies. St. Paul murres foraged entirely on the shelf, whereas St. George murres commuted to the continental shelf-break at night and foraged on the shelf during the day. Bogoslof murres foraged in oceanic waters in close proximity to the colony. Murres breeding at the both Pribilof colonies spent less time attending nests and had higher levels of stress hormone corticosterone compared to murres breeding at Bogoslof, although chick-provisioning rates and fledging success were similar among the three colonies. Lower nest attendance and higher corticosterone suggest lower food availability in the Pribilof domain compared to the Bogoslof region. Murres breeding at the Pribilofs used different foraging strategies to buffer effects of food shortages on their reproduction: flight costs associated with longer distance night trips at St. George were presumably balanced by benefits of higher density and/or more lipid rich prey in the continental shelf-break regions, whereas the additional distance of St. Paul from the continental shelf-break may have outweighed any energetic gain. Murres exhibited a remarkable degree of plasticity of foraging strategies in response to changes in their food availability, but the breeding success of murres did not reflect either food limitations or the colony proximity to productive oceanographic features.

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“…Historic and contemporary subsistence patterns differ, perhaps because of the history of cultural oppression and singlespecies focus on fur seals (Corbett and Swibold 2000). The islands are part of a large regional seabird monitoring program (Dragoo et al 2014) and also the site of much research on seabird ecology and physiology (e.g., Hunt and Byrd 1999, Kitaysky et al 2006, Byrd et al 2008). This strong research and management focus has occurred largely without reference to the role of seabirds in the lives of the local communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seabirds as a subsistence and cultural resource in two remote Alaskan communities

Young¹,

Kitaysky²,

Carothers³

et al. 2014

E&S

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Contrasting population trends of piscivorous seabirds in the Pribilof Islands: A 30-year perspective

Cited by 42 publications

References 25 publications

Climate change, pink salmon, and the nexus between bottom-up and top-down forcing in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea

Climate change, pink salmon, and the nexus between bottom-up and top-down forcing in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea

Does location really matter? An inter-colony comparison of seabirds breeding at varying distances from productive oceanographic features in the Bering Sea

Seabirds as a subsistence and cultural resource in two remote Alaskan communities

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