Important foraging areas of seabirds from Anguilla, Caribbean: Implications for marine spatial planning

Abstract

a b s t r a c tMarine spatial planning (MSP) has become an important tool to balance the needs of commercial, economical and recreational users of the marine environment with the protection of marine biodiversity. BirdLife International advocate the designation of marine Important Bird Areas (IBAs) as a key tool to improve the protection and sustainable management of the oceans, including the designation of Marine Protected Areas, which can feed into MSP processes. This study presents the results of three years of seabird tracking from the UK Overseas Territory of Anguilla, where marine resources are currently relatively unexploited and MSP is in its infancy. The core foraging areas of 1326 foraging trips from 238 individuals, representing five species (brown booby Sula leucogaster, masked booby Sula dactylatra, sooty tern Onychoprion fuscatus, magnificent frigatebird Fregata magnificens and red-billed tropicbird Phaethon aethereus) breeding on three of Anguilla's offshore cays were used to calculate the hotspot foraging areas for each study species. These high activity areas were then compared with fishing activity within Anguilla's Exclusive Economic zone and to proposed coastal developments. Two marine IBAs were identified within Anguilla's waters: the first to be defined, using seabird tracking data, in the Caribbean region. Whilst the level of fishing activity and associated seabird by-catch is hard to quantify, the core foraging areas of seabirds breeding in Anguilla were observed to overlap with areas known for high fishing activity. These findings highlight the need to work both nationally and across territorial boundaries to implement appropriate marine spatial planning.

Identification of marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas for penguins around the South Shetland Islands and South Orkney Islands

“…This protocol has been tested and applied to more than 80 species, primarily flying seabirds (mostly Procellariiformes), resulting in the identification of more than 500 marine IBAs worldwide Lascelles et al, 2016;Soanes et al, 2016).…”

Framework for mapping key areas for marine megafauna to inform Marine Spatial Planning: The Falkland Islands case study

“…The Gompertz curve was used because it accounts for the principle of central place foraging ecology and provides a way to model the decrease in use from the colony point as an average function. The use of the Gompertz curve is conducted under the same assumptions as the foraging radius concept (maximum distance individuals reach at sea from the colony) that has been used in other studies (Grecian et al 2012;Soanes et al 2016). The average function was then applied to all known colonies of each species without tracking data in another breeding stage, to create a map presenting the modelled percentage of animals' core-use areas of each colony covering each 10 x10 km cell during each breeding stage, then represented after applying the bathymetric mask ( Figures 4d, 4e).…”

“…An increasing number of studies worldwide have investigated different approaches to analyse the available data and identify key areas for marine megafauna (also called important, priority conservation or critical areas; Gregr and Trites 2001;Bailey and Thompson 2009;Louzao et al 2009;Wilson et al 2009;Hedd et al 2011;Camphuysen et al 2012;Grecian et al 2012;Lascelles et al 2012;Le Corre et al 2012;Montevecchi et al 2012;McClellan et al 2014;Camaclang et al 2015;Flanders et al 2015;Thiers et al 2016;Soanes et al 2016). Of particular importance, BirdLife International has developed a methodological framework to analyse and incorporate tracking data for multiple seabird species which can be used to define Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), both regionally and globally (Lascelles et al 2016).…”

Environmental Predictors of Seabird Wrecks in a Tropical Coastal Area

“…These species forage within 20–25 km from breeding sites [45, 46], and, therefore, their carcasses may be found in relatively distant beaches from their colonies. Quite puzzlingly, the effect size of distance from breeding islands for the magnificent frigatebird was pronounced (β = -1.42), but the species forage within 300 km from colonies [88]. Beach monitoring programs and conservation actions to protect seabirds may be focused on environments located within 50 km of breeding sites, where stranding incidence is higher than in remote areas.…”