Diet of the northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis : reliance on commercial fisheries?

Phillips, Richard A.; Petersen, M. K.; Lilliendahl, Kristján; Sólmundsson, Jón; Hamer, Keith C.; Camphuysen, C.J.; Zonfrillo, Bernard

doi:10.1007/s002270050613

Cited by 68 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Seabird dietary studies can inform ecosystem risk assessments for fishery management by identifying interactions between fisheries and seabirds for different populations (Phillips et al, 1999a). Understanding the dietary flexibility of seabirds is also fundamental for predicting the responses of individuals and populations to spatial and temporal changes in natural prey abundance, and availability from fisheries, and hence for the effective management of marine resources (Constable et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA Metabarcoding as a Marine Conservation and Management Tool: A Circumpolar Examination of Fishery Discards in the Diet of Threatened Albatrosses

et al. 2017

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Almost all of the world's fisheries overlap spatially and temporally with foraging seabirds, with impacts that range from food supplementation (through scavenging behind vessels), to resource competition and incidental mortality. The nature and extent of interactions between seabirds and fisheries vary, as does the level and efficacy of management and mitigation. Seabird dietary studies provide information on prey diversity and often identify species that are also caught in fisheries, providing evidence of linkages which can be used to improve ecosystem based management of fisheries. However, species identification of fish can be difficult with conventional dietary techniques. The black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) has a circumpolar distribution and has suffered major population declines due primarily to incidental mortality in fisheries. We use DNA metabarcoding of black-browed albatross scats to investigate their fish prey during the breeding season at six sites across their range, over two seasons. We identify the spatial and temporal diversity of fish in their diets and overlaps with fisheries operating in adjacent waters. Across all sites, 51 fish species from 33 families were identified, with 23 species contributing >10% of the proportion of samples or sequences at any site. There was extensive geographic variation but little inter-annual variability in fish species consumed. Several fish species that are not easily accessible to albatross, but are commercially harvested or by-caught, were detected in the albatross diet during the breeding season. This was particularly evident at the Falkland Islands and Iles Kerguelen where higher fishery catch amounts (or discard amounts where known) corresponded to higher occurrence of these species in diet samples. This study indicates ongoing McInnes et al. Fishery Discards in Albatross Diets interactions with fisheries through consumption of fishery discards, increasing the risk of seabird mortality. Breeding success was higher at sites where fisheries discards were detected in the diet, highlighting the need to minimize discarding to reduce impacts on the ecosystem. DNA metabarcoding provides a valuable non-invasive tool for assessing the fish prey of seabirds across broad geographic ranges. This provides an avenue for fishery resource managers to assess compliance of fisheries with discard policies and the level of interaction with scavenging seabirds.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA Metabarcoding as a Marine Conservation and Management Tool: A Circumpolar Examination of Fishery Discards in the Diet of Threatened Albatrosses

et al. 2017

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“…Unfortunately, we did not sample known breeding birds very late into the breeding season at Cape Vera, but our data did not suggest a significant increase in fish consumption in August samples (0.3 to 0.4 fish bird -1 at Cape Vera, Cape Searle and the North Water Polynya). Phillips et al (1999), studying the diet of fulmars near Disko Island, Greenland, recorded a similar proportion of birds consuming fish (38%), but these were mostly capelin Mallotus villosus. Like our study, they did not observe an increase in fish consumption as the breeding season progressed (in fact, fulmars shifted to crustaceans and pteropods later in the breeding season).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…We found polychaete remains in 41% of the fulmars at Cape Vera, but occurrence was lower in May than in the latter months of the breeding season. Presumably, this temporal pattern is attributable to the availability of the worms at the surface; Nereis are more common at the surface when spawning in the warmer summer waters (Phillips et al 1999). Arctic fulmars could be ingesting polychaetes directly, or could be getting their remains secondarily by consuming fish that had eaten polychaetes; our data do not allow us to distinguish between these possibilities.…”

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confidence: 80%

“…Differential rates of digestion and passage through the digestive tract undoubtedly affect the relative proportions of the different taxa found during stomach analysis (e.g. Bradstreet 1976, Gaston & Noble 1985, Phillips et al 1999; thus, the types of sampling methods and their biases must be considered when interpreting results of dietary studies (Barrett et al 2007). In discussing our results below, we acknowledge where these biases may have influenced our observations, and we caution that comparisons of our data to past and future studies should consider both potential biases attributable to methodology, as well as potential effects of annual Arctic ice phenology on prey distribution and availability (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Temporal and spatial patterns in the diet of northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis in the Canadian High Arctic

Karnovsky¹,

Gaston²,

Hobson³

et al. 2010

Aquat. Biol.

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The northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis is a medium-sized seabird with a broad, circumpolar range in the northern hemisphere, and is the only petrel that inhabits the High Arctic. We used stomach analysis and stable isotopes (δ 15 N, δ 13 C) of muscles to examine the diet of 179 fulmars during the breeding season at 4 locations in Arctic Canada, to compare diet to those from studies conducted in these regions > 2 decades earlier. Across sampling locations, cephalopods, polychaetes and crustaceans dominated dietary remains in fulmars, although there was some regional variation. Both stable isotopes and stomach dissections showed that a seasonal shift in diet occurred in May, after which fulmars fed at a higher trophic level, suggesting a difference in winter/migration diet and breeding season diet. After migration, fulmar digestive organs decreased markedly in size, and by the time chicks were hatching, these organs were still 17 to 39% smaller than their size when birds arrived at the colony. Despite ongoing changes in the marine environment in much of the Arctic due to global warming, recent fulmar diet samples were similar to samples collected in the 1970s and 1980s, except that a higher proportion of recent collections contained fish. KEY WORDS: Arctic · Cephalopod · Crustacean · Procellariiformes · Reproduction Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherAquat Biol 10: [181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191] 2010 fulmar diet in the High Arctic, although it appears to rely more on invertebrates in this region, particularly early in the breeding season, than farther south (Hatch & Nettleship 1998, Mallory 2006.We examined the diet of fulmars at several locations in the Canadian High Arctic. This region is experiencing environmental changes, including less extensive and thinner sea ice cover, earlier ice breakup, later ice formation and in some cases warmer sea surface temperatures (ACIA 2005). Most High Arctic marine birds use ice edges, leads and polynyas as important foraging locations because these sites are often highly productive and provide the only open water areas where prey are accessible (Brown & Nettleship 1981, Stirling 1997. In fact, in the Canadian Arctic, most polynyas and recurrent ice leads have been identified as key marine habitat sites for migratory birds (Mallory & Fontaine 2004). Thus, long-term changes in marine environmental conditions may influence the timing and availability of prey for breeding marine birds. For example, Gaston et al. (2003) found that the diet of thick-billed murres Uria lomvia at one Arctic colony switched from ice-associated Arctic cod Boreogadus saida to warmer-water capelin Mallotus villosus over a 20 yr period. Such changes in marine food webs could potentially influence reproduction of marine birds through changes in prey availability or diet quality. Consequently, our study sought to: (1) establish a baseline of dietary information for fulmars at locations where this had not been investigated previ...

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“…Fisher (1952) famously proposed that the huge expansion in range and population size by northern fulmars since the 17 th century was linked to exploitation of offal and discards. While the validity of this hypothesis is difficult to test, more recent studies indicate that fulmar at-sea distribution is more closely linked to oceanographic features than to availability of discards (Camphuysen & Garthe 1997), and that while discards constitute an important fraction of fulmar diet in some areas, they are rarely the most important food item (Phillips et al 1999). It thus seems unlikely that the current range and population size of fulmars is limited by the availability of discards, and that current and future reductions in amounts of discards will have widespread negative effects on this species.…”

Section: Discardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action plan for seabirds in Western-Nordic areas

2010

TemaNord

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Diet of the northern fulmar Fulmarus glacialis : reliance on commercial fisheries?

Cited by 68 publications

References 23 publications

DNA Metabarcoding as a Marine Conservation and Management Tool: A Circumpolar Examination of Fishery Discards in the Diet of Threatened Albatrosses

DNA Metabarcoding as a Marine Conservation and Management Tool: A Circumpolar Examination of Fishery Discards in the Diet of Threatened Albatrosses

Temporal and spatial patterns in the diet of northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis in the Canadian High Arctic

Action plan for seabirds in Western-Nordic areas

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