Going deep: common murres dive into frigid water for aggregated, persistent and slow-moving capelin

Hedd, April; Regular, Paul M.; Montevecchi, William A.; Buren, Alejandro D.; Burke, Chantelle M.; Fifield, David

doi:10.1007/s00227-008-1125-6

Cited by 56 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…On the other hand, birds may have caught larger prey when they made deeper dives (mainly observed in 2007). In the Atlantic Ocean, common murres Uria aalge frequently dive to deep (>100 m) and cold water (< 0°C) to feed on large capelin Mallotus villosus which are energy rich and slow swimmers (Hedd et al 2009 The results of our study, together with those from previous studies of the Bering Sea ecosystem, imply a correlation between SST, water temperature at depth, thermocline intensity and the foraging behaviour of murres. The marine ecosystem of the Bering Sea shelf has experienced series of both cold and warm climate regimes in the last 2 to 3 decades (Stabeno et al 2007.…”

Section: Inter-annual Variation In the Foraging Behaviour Of The Birdssupporting

confidence: 73%

Annual variation in the foraging behaviour of thick-billed murres in relation to upper-ocean thermal structure around St. George Island, Bering Sea

Kokubun¹,

Takahashi²,

Ito³

et al. 2010

Aquat. Biol.

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Section: Inter-annual Variation In the Foraging Behaviour Of The Birdssupporting

confidence: 73%

Annual variation in the foraging behaviour of thick-billed murres in relation to upper-ocean thermal structure around St. George Island, Bering Sea

Kokubun¹,

Takahashi²,

Ito³

et al. 2010

Aquat. Biol.

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“…However, parents at instrumented nests spent more time away from the colony, and feeding rates suggests some reduction in chick provisioning by the instrumented birds and compensatory behavior by their partners (Paredes et al, 2005). Dives conducted by birds on St. George and Bogoslof were similar to those previously recorded for the species (Hedd et al, 2009;Takahashi et al, 2008). Furthermore, although, birds at all three colonies lost mass during deployment on average, mass loss during the breeding season may be an adaptive adjustment for reducing flight costs and increasing foraging efficiency (Croll et al, 1991), and we have no measure of mass loss on control (non-tagged) birds to determine logger effect.…”

Section: Instrument Effects and Performancesupporting

confidence: 65%

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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“…Descent rates were less variable than ascent rates, possibly because descent rates were maximized to occur in a narrow wingbeat frequency while ascent rates reflected variations in buoyancy. As is the case for murres (Croll et al 1992, Hedd et al 2009, and is generally more common in birds than mammals (Kooyman & Ponganis 1998), a high proportion of dives (auklets: 30 to 40%; murrelets: 13%) exceeded their respective estimated ADLs. Higher mass-specific O 2 stores, proton buffering capacity and dive durations for a given surface interval for auklets suggest that auklets are more regularly limited than murrelets by O 2 stores due to the longer dive durations of auklets.…”

Section: Foraging Behaviormentioning

confidence: 91%

Oxygen stores and foraging behavior of two sympatric, planktivorous alcids

Elliott¹,

Shoji²,

Campbell³

et al. 2010

Aquat. Biol.

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Seabird species with overlapping diets commonly coexist at breeding colonies. For example, ancient murrelets Synthliboramphus antiquus and Cassin's auklets Ptychoramphus aleuticus are similar-sized small alcids that feed on krill and small fish. Little is known regarding their partitioning of aquatic resources, so we assessed the O 2 stores and foraging behavior of sympatrically breeding populations of these species. The attachment of recorders (1 to 3% of body mass) caused substantial nest desertion, but we reduced these effects by only equipping experienced birds early in the day. Auklets and murrelets had 18 to 24% higher mass-specific O 2 stores than slightly larger nondiving kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla. When compared to published values, blood hemoglobin content was higher, muscle pH buffering capacity was similar and muscle myoglobin content was lower for small divers than for larger non-phocid divers. The slightly higher O 2 stores of Cassin's auklets was reflected in their aquatic behavior, as auklets dived longer than murrelets at any given dive depth. Moreover, chick-rearing auklets spent 31% more time underwater than incubating auklets and 50% more time underwater than incubating murrelets. In total, 45% of dives by chick-rearing auklets, 36% of dives by incubating auklets and 13% of dives by incubating murrelets exceeded their estimated aerobic dive limits. Murrelets primarily used V-shaped dives while auklets generally exhibited W-shaped dive profiles with a protracted bottom phase. Thus the O 2 stores and foraging behavior of the 2 sympatric seabirds differed.

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Going deep: common murres dive into frigid water for aggregated, persistent and slow-moving capelin

Cited by 56 publications

References 44 publications

Annual variation in the foraging behaviour of thick-billed murres in relation to upper-ocean thermal structure around St. George Island, Bering Sea

Annual variation in the foraging behaviour of thick-billed murres in relation to upper-ocean thermal structure around St. George Island, Bering Sea

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

Oxygen stores and foraging behavior of two sympatric, planktivorous alcids

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