Forage fish to growing chicks: shared food resources between two closely related tern species

Marinao, Cristian; Suárez, Nicolás M.; Gatto, Alejandro Javier; Yorio, Pablo

doi:10.1007/s00227-019-3570-9

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…terns (Marinao et al 2019) and in Sandwich terns Sterna sandvicensis (Stienen et al 2000) adults meet growing chicks' needs by feeding them larger prey. In common terns, chick energy requirements are thought to peak at around 15 days (Klaassen 1994).…”

Section: Trophic Diversity Across Tissue Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns in tern trophic diversity in a region experiencing rapid climate change

Gownaris,

Welch,

Tengeres

2024

Preprint

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Foraging plasticity provides a mechanism for long-lived species to adapt to rapidly changing environments and, when individuals vary in their plasticity, can drive changes in trophic diversity. We use chick provisioning data and stable isotope values of blood cells and plasma to test for drivers of trophic diversity in the diet of common terns (Sterna hirundo) and Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) breeding in the rapidly changing Gulf of Maine. We hypothesized that individual adult terns would differ in their response to reduced food availability, driving higher diversity in tern chick diet in lower-resource contexts, and that individual-level responses would influence fitness. We used the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index as our measure of trophic diversity for provisioning data and the size of the two-dimensional isotope ellipse as our measure of trophic diversity for stable isotope data. We compared these measures of trophic diversity to proxies for food availability, including the occurrence of preferred prey (herring and hake) in tern chick diets and the average sea surface temperature in terns’ foraging range. Additionally, we compared shifts in isotope values across time for individually paired blood cell and plasma samples and, on one island and year, for individually paired plasma samples taken 10 days apart. Trophic diversity measured using provisioning and stable isotope data were correlated across contexts. Although both measures of trophic diversity were highly variable, neither was correlated with measures of food availability. Arctic tern chicks had less-enriched δ13C values, lower δ15N values, and were fed smaller prey than common tern chicks, but did not differ in their trophic diversity. Isotope measures of trophic diversity were greater for plasma samples, which tended to show higher δ15N values and more-enriched δ13C values, than for blood cell samples. For the paired plasma samples collected on one island, chicks shifted to higher δ15N values and less-enriched δ13C values later in the season. Chicks that shifted to relatively higher δ15N values also showed greater magnitude shifts to less-enriched δ13C values and, in Arctic terns, fledged at a smaller mass. Our study suggests trade-offs in individual-level foraging and diet plasticity in terns, with possible implications for fitness.

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Section: Trophic Diversity Across Tissue Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Patterns in tern trophic diversity in a region experiencing rapid climate change

Gownaris,

Welch,

Tengeres

2024

Preprint

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“…In such dynamic environments, where the distribution of prey availability may change quickly, foragers need to adapt their foraging movements accordingly (Weimerskirch et al 2005). Coastal waters are inherently dynamic due to varying water depths and sediment types, the tidal cycle, currents, fronts and high local turbidity at the discharges of rivers (Smout et al 2013, Thaxter et al 2013, Goyert 2015, Robertson et al 2016, Marinao et al 2019. When both prey and predator species rely on dynamic habitats, predators are expected to show a strong behavioural response to ephemeral environmental conditions that may indicate prey availability and to vary their at-sea area use according to the spatial and temporal scales at which environmental conditions change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative effects of static and dynamic abiotic conditions on foraging behaviour in breeding Sandwich terns

Fijn

Thaxter

Aarts

et al. 2022

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Where and when animals forage depends on the spatio-temporal distribution and catchability of their prey. In dynamic environments, animals can repeatedly target areas that provide predictable availability of prey or may search for ephemeral conditions of high prey availability. However, how foraging behaviour is initiated in response to static versus dynamic environmental conditions is difficult to study, since both environmental data sources are often lacking. In this study, central-place foraging Sandwich terns were tracked using GPS loggers during foraging. Hidden Markov models showed that the probability of switching between transit and foraging was most strongly affected by the static variable sediment type. Wave period (a dynamic variable related to weather), salinity (a dynamic variable) and water depth (another static variable) affected the transition probability to a lesser extent. Cloud cover, wind speed and current speed were only included in lower ranked models. Air and water temperature were not included in any model. Consistent with the greater importance of static versus dynamic abiotic conditions, consistency between foraging trips of the same individual varied irrespective of tidal, diurnal or seasonal cycles, although trips made close in time within a season were slightly more similar than trips with a larger time gap. We suggest that Sandwich terns target broad areas with coarser sediments, where sandeels (Ammodytidae) are more common, and that weather variables may be related to prey visibility. Our study suggests that even in highly dynamic environments, static environmental variables may more strongly affect foraging behaviour of coastal seabirds than dynamic variables.

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Sharing menus and kids' specials: Inter- and intraspecific differences in stable isotope niches between sympatrically breeding storm-petrels

Ausems

Skrzypek

Wojczulanis‐Jakubas

et al. 2020

Science of The Total Environment

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Forage fish to growing chicks: shared food resources between two closely related tern species

Cited by 4 publications

References 51 publications

Patterns in tern trophic diversity in a region experiencing rapid climate change

Patterns in tern trophic diversity in a region experiencing rapid climate change

Relative effects of static and dynamic abiotic conditions on foraging behaviour in breeding Sandwich terns

Sharing menus and kids' specials: Inter- and intraspecific differences in stable isotope niches between sympatrically breeding storm-petrels

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