Differences in the timing and extent of annual moult of black-browed albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris living in contrasting environments

Catry, Paulo; Poisbleau, Maud; Lecoq, Miguel; Phillips, Richard A.

doi:10.1007/s00300-013-1309-5

Cited by 23 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…, Catry et al. ), thus reaching their wintering destinations with less pressure on molting schedules, allowing them to conserve more energy for the next breeding attempt. However, experimental evidence linking breeding effort to molting schedules is lacking, possibly due to the challenges of recording the molting stage of birds in the open sea.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs of breeding are rapidly buffered and do not affect migratory behavior in a long‐lived bird species

Ramos

Llabrés

Monclús

et al. 2018

Ecology

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Life history theory states that individual fitness in one stage of life is conditioned by what occurred in previous stages. In migratory species, reproductive effort during breeding has often been found to influence body condition, molt schedule, self-provisioning and migration of individuals in subsequent seasons (i.e., carryover effects of breeding). However, there is a current uncertainty in understanding how long-distance migrants trade off among such energy-demanding activities (i.e., breeding, molting and migrating). To provide evidence to the field, we experimentally reduced the parental effort of a long-lived Procellariform, the Cory's shearwater (Calonectris borealis), by inducing failure at the incubation stage. Treatment and control birds were tracked during their subsequent migration by means of light-level and immersion loggers and sampled for six specific feathers (molted at different periods along the migratory cycle) upon the recovery of the loggers 1 yr later. Feathers were used to perform stable isotope analysis (SIA) and determine corticosterone levels (CORT). By these means, we evaluated the effect of breeding effort on migratory strategy, at-sea activity patterns, molt patterns, and levels of stress experienced by birds along the non-breeding period. We did not detect any difference between birds in the induced failure group and successful breeders in terms of spatio-temporal distribution: all birds shared common foraging areas throughout the study period and the timing of major phenological events did not differ. Failed birds significantly advanced their molt, as revealed by SIA and flying activity patterns. The stress levels of failed birds, inferred through CORT concentrations in feathers, were found to be consistently lower than in successful breeders, through the end of the breeding to the non-breeding period. Thus, we provide robust evidence that the costs of reproduction can be physiologically mediated from the breeding to the non-breeding period through molting schedules and CORT levels. However, we failed to detect clear effects on migratory behavior or subsequent breeding success, suggesting that costs of breeding in long-lived species may be rapidly buffered during the post-breeding period, as would be expected from life history theory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Costs of breeding are rapidly buffered and do not affect migratory behavior in a long‐lived bird species

Ramos

Llabrés

Monclús

et al. 2018

Ecology

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“…It also minimizes effective insulation losses that may be energetically costly for seabirds when they increase time spent on water while water temperatures are low. A protracted renewal also means that measuring isotopic values of body feathers is a powerful tool to gather useful information on the whole inter-breeding period (Jaeger et al, 2010a), with the main limitation being that some body feathers may grow during the breeding season (Catry et al, 2013;Bourgeois and Dromzée, 2014).…”

Section: ) This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Combination of At-Sea Activity, Geolocation and Feather Stable Isotopes Documents Where and When Seabirds Molt

et al. 2016

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Key facets of the foraging ecology of seabirds during the inter-breeding period still remain poorly understood because of the difficulty of studying them at sea, including during the energy-demanding molting stage. Here, the extent to which three sympatric petrels (Antarctic and thin-billed prions, and blue petrel) from the subantarctic Kerguelen Islands modify their foraging ecology during molt was investigated using a combination of complementary tools, namely miniaturized saltwater immersion geolocators (GLS) and the isotopic method. Firstly, molting behavior was first characterized in the blue petrel, a reference species that is known to renew its plumage in autumn. GLS and feather stable isotopes ( 13 δ C as a proxy of the birds' foraging habitat) indicated that the post-breeding molt of blue petrel occurred in Antarctic waters. Importantly, activity recorders showed that molt was marked by a strong peak in time spent daily sitting on water, which thereafter declined to lower values during the remaining winter months. Secondly, the peak in time spent sitting on water was used as a proxy to characterize the contrasted molt strategies of the two prion species. As blue petrels demonstrated, thin-billed prions molted during the post-breeding period in cold Antarctic waters where they fed primarily on low trophic level prey, most likely Antarctic krill ( 15 δ N as a proxy of the birds' diet). By contrast, Antarctic prions presented an unexpected pre-breeding molt of longer duration that took place further north, in warm subtropical waters. Interestingly, the two Antarctic molting species, the blue petrel and thin-billed prion, renewed their plumage at the same time and within the same oceanic zone that is likely to be a previously undescribed hot spot of seabird diversity during the Austral autumn. The study contributes to a growing body of evidence that closely-related species exhibit various foraging strategies allowing ecological segregation and sheds new light on the poorly known critical molting stage of seabirds.

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“…However, two birds were breeding (one of them was moulting primary feathers), which shows that skuas, like some other seabirds, may moult during their breeding period (Catry et al . , Bourgeois & Dromzeé ). They therefore simultaneously presented feathers whose isotopic signatures belong to different moulting localities (Fox et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, Catry et al . , Bourgeois & Dromzeé , Weimerskirch et al . ) and therefore for the simultaneous presence on the birds of feathers developed during both the breeding and the inter‐breeding periods.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Skuas (Stercorarius spp.) moult body feathers during both the breeding and inter‐breeding periods: implications for stable isotope investigations in seabirds

Grilli

Cherel

2016

Ibis

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Seabirds are mostly thought to moult during the inter‐breeding period and the isotopic values of their feathers are often therefore assumed to relate to their assimilated diet during such periods. We observed Brown Skuas Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi and South Polar Skuas Stercorarius maccormicki moulting on a breeding site at King George Island, Antarctica. This raises concerns about the reliability of using stable isotopes in feathers to infer feeding localities of birds during the inter‐breeding period. We analysed the δ13C and δ15N values of growing and fully grown body feathers collected from the same individuals. For both species, δ13C values of growing feathers indicated feeding areas in the Antarctic zone (breeding grounds), whereas most fully grown feathers (100% for South Polar Skuas and 93.3% for Brown Skuas) could be assigned to northern latitudes (non‐breeding grounds). However, a few fully grown body feathers of Brown Skuas (6.7% of the feathers, belonging to two birds) showed isotopic values that indicated moult in the Antarctic zone. As the growth period of those feathers was unknown, they could not be used with confidence to depict the foraging behaviour of the birds during the non‐breeding period. Although precautions must be taken when inferring dietary information from feathers in seabirds where the moulting pattern is unknown, this study shows that if the development stage of a feather (growing/fully grown) is identified, then dietary information from both breeding and non‐breeding seasons can be obtained on the same individual birds.

show abstract

Differences in the timing and extent of annual moult of black-browed albatrosses Thalassarche melanophris living in contrasting environments

Cited by 23 publications

References 35 publications

Costs of breeding are rapidly buffered and do not affect migratory behavior in a long‐lived bird species

Costs of breeding are rapidly buffered and do not affect migratory behavior in a long‐lived bird species

Combination of At-Sea Activity, Geolocation and Feather Stable Isotopes Documents Where and When Seabirds Molt

Skuas (Stercorarius spp.) moult body feathers during both the breeding and inter‐breeding periods: implications for stable isotope investigations in seabirds

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