Global spatial ecology of three closely-related gadfly petrels

Abstract

The conservation status and taxonomy of the three gadfly petrels that breed in Macaronesia is still discussed partly due to the scarce information on their spatial ecology. Using geolocator and capture-mark-recapture data, we examined phenology, natal philopatry and breeding-site fidelity, year-round distribution, habitat usage and at-sea activity of the three closely-related gadfly petrels that breed in Macaronesia: Zino’s petrel Pterodroma madeira, Desertas petrel P. deserta and Cape Verde petrel P. feae. All P. feae remained around the breeding area during their non-breeding season, whereas P. madeira and P. deserta dispersed far from their colony, migrating either to the Cape Verde region, further south to equatorial waters in the central Atlantic, or to the Brazil Current. The three taxa displayed a clear allochrony in timing of breeding. Habitat modelling and at-sea activity patterns highlighted similar environmental preferences and foraging behaviours of the three taxa. Finally, no chick or adult was recaptured away from its natal site and survival estimates were relatively high at all study sites, indicating strong philopatry and breeding-site fidelity for the three taxa. The combination of high philopatry, marked breeding asynchrony and substantial spatio-temporal segregation of their year-round distribution suggest very limited gene flow among the three taxa.

Complex biogeographical patterns support an ecological connectivity network of a large marine predator in the north‐east Atlantic

“…Although an animal's distribution is linked in a scale‐dependent manner to the distribution and predictability of their principal prey (Fauchald, Erikstad, & Skarsfjord, ; Stevick et al., ), other reasons likely contribute to variations in migration and dispersal of marine top predators. These include reproductive strategies, intra‐ and interspecific competition or, as more recently suggested, physiological maintenance (Durban & Pitman, ; Greenwood, ; Ramos et al., ; Sandell, ). In the case of the short‐finned pilot whale, most studies investigating their movement patterns and population structure have focused in areas smaller than the species ranging capability (Abecassis et al., ; Alves, Quérouil, et al., ; Mahaffy, Baird, McSweeney, Webster, & Schorr, ).…”

An adaptive method for identifying marine areas of high conservation priority

“…; Ramos et al. ), tracking data are largely restricted to a few species and colonies (Kays et al. ), and it is improbable that data will be collected concurrently from all seabird colonies over large areas.…”

It is the time for oceanic seabirds: Tracking year‐round distribution of gadfly petrels across the Atlantic Ocean

“…Observations at sea suggest that most of these species are migratory, dispersing over large areas of the central Atlantic Ocean (Enticott, ; Murphy & Mowbray, ; Simons, Lee, & Haney, ), although until recently there have been no tracking data for most of these species. A few recent studies have reported some information on the spatial distribution of four of the species considered here (Jodice, Ronconi, Rupp, Wallace, & Satgé, ; Ramos et al., ), but this is the first attempt to integrate the temporal‐spatial pattern of habitat use across virtually all species in the genus breeding in the region (Table S1 in Appendix summarizes the novelty of each data set). Our goal is to identify high‐use areas for gadfly petrels within the Atlantic Ocean, by (1) explicitly linking breeding and non‐breeding grounds of gadfly petrel species that breed across this ocean basin, and (2) evaluating the relative importance of these foraging areas by quantifying the spatio‐temporal overlap among the species.…”