Multispecies tracking reveals a major seabird hotspot in the North Atlantic

Davies, Tammy E.; Carneiro, Ana P. B.; Tarzia, Marguerite; Wakefield, Ewan D.; Hennicke, Janos C.; Frederiksen, Morten; Hansen, Erpur Snær; Campos, Bruna; Hazin, Carolina; Lascelles, Ben; Anker‐Nilssen, Tycho; Arnardóttir, Hólmfríður; Barrett, Robert T.; Biscoito, Manuel; Bollache, Loı̈c; Boulinier, Thierry; Catry, Paulo; Ceia, Filipe R.; Chastel, Olivier; Christensen‐Dalsgaard, Signe; Cruz‐Flores, Marta; Danielsen, Jóhannis; Daunt, Francis; Dunn, Euan; Egevang, Carsten; Fagundes, Ana Isabel; Fayet, Annette L.; Fort, Jérôme; Furness, Robert W.; Gilg, Olivier; González‐Solís, Jacob; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Grémillet, David; Guilford, Tim; Hanssen, Sveinn Are; Harris, Michael; Hedd, April; Huffeldt, Nicholas Per; Jessopp, Mark; Kolbeinsson, Yann; Krietsch, Johannes; Lang, Johannes; Linnebjerg, Jannie Fries; Lorentsen, Svein‐Håkon; Madeiros, Jeremy; Magnusdottir, Ellen; Mallory, Mark L.; Tranquilla, Laura McFarlane; Merkel, Flemming; Militão, Teresa; Moe, Børge; Montevecchi, William A.; Morera‐Pujol, Virginia; Mosbech, Anders; Neves, Verónica C.; Newell, Mark A.; Olsen, Bergur; Paiva, Vítor H.; Peter, Hans‐Ulrich; Petersen, Aevar; Phillips, Richard A.; Ramírez, Iván; Ramos, Jaime A.; Ramos, Raül; Ronconi, Robert A.; Ryan, Peter G.; Schmidt, Niels Martin; Sigurðsson, Ingvar A.; Sittler, Benoît; Steen, Harald B.; Stenhouse, Iain J.; Strøm, Hallvard; Systad, Geir Helge; Thompson, Paul M.; Þórarinsson, Þorkell Lindberg; Bemmelen, R.S.A. van; Wanless, Sarah; Zino, Francis; Dias, Maria P.

doi:10.1111/conl.12824

Cited by 57 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 57 publications

(90 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The proposed area, named the 'North Atlantic Current and Evlanov Seamount' (NACE), has been identified as an important area for a number of migrating pelagic seabirds, including the 6 species covered by the present study. The importance of the area for seabirds has been documented by a designated study where a large seabird tracking data set covering 21 species was compiled and analysed (Davies et al 2021). Here, we used the proposed delineation to identify the populations in the SEATRACK data set that use the NACE area.…”

Section: Spatial Management Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Year-round distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations: applications for population management and marine spatial planning

Fauchald

Tarroux

Amélineau

et al. 2021

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Tracking data of marine predators are increasingly used in marine spatial management. We developed a spatial data set with estimates of the monthly distribution of 6 pelagic seabird species breeding in the Northeast Atlantic. The data set was based on year-round global location sensor (GLS) tracking data of 2356 adult seabirds from 2006-2019 from a network of seabird colonies, data describing the physical environment and data on seabird population sizes. Tracking and environmental data were combined in monthly species distribution models (SDMs). Cross-validations were used to assess the transferability of models between years and breeding locations. The analyses showed that birds from colonies close to each other (<500 km apart) used the same nonbreeding habitats, while birds from distant colonies (>1000 km) used colony-specific and, in many cases, non-overlapping habitats. Based on these results, the SDM from the nearest model colony was used to predict the distribution of all seabird colonies lying within a species-specific cut-off distance (400-500 km). Uncertainties in the predictions were estimated by cluster bootstrap sampling. The resulting data set consisted of 4692 map layers, each layer predicting the densities of birds from a given species, colony and month across the North Atlantic. This data set represents the annual distribution of 23.5 million adult pelagic seabirds, or 87% of the Northeast Atlantic breeding population of the study species. We show how the data set can be used in population and spatial management applications, including the detection of population-specific nonbreeding habitats and identifying populations influenced by marine protected areas.

show abstract

Section: Spatial Management Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Year-round distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations: applications for population management and marine spatial planning

Fauchald

Tarroux

Amélineau

et al. 2021

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Global targets for MPAs have been proposed and continue to be refined. The United Nations (UN) is actively negotiating the implementation of MPAs in regions beyond national jurisdictions (i.e., the 'High Seas') (United Nations, 2017), regions that are particularly important for marine megafauna (Harrison et al, 2018;Beal et al, 2021;Davies et al, 2021b). Moreover, in 2016 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called to increase the UN Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 from 10% to up to 40% of the ocean to be protected by 2030 (Hilborn, 2016;IUCN, 2016;Jefferson et al, 2021), and many countries and Tribal nations have come out in support of these goals (Allen et al, 2021;Sullivan-Stack et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mismatches in scale between highly mobile marine megafauna and marine protected areas

Conners

Sisson

Agamboué³

et al. 2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe in part to facilitate the conservation of marine megafauna under the assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; however, this alignment is not well established. Using a global tracking dataset from 36 species across five taxa, chosen to reflect the span of home range size in highly mobile marine megafauna, we show most MPAs are too small to encompass complete home ranges of most species. Based on size alone, 40% of existing MPAs could encompass the home ranges of the smallest ranged species, while only < 1% of existing MPAs could encompass those of the largest ranged species. Further, where home ranges and MPAs overlapped in real geographic space, MPAs encompassed < 5% of core areas used by all species. Despite most home ranges of mobile marine megafauna being much larger than existing MPAs, we demonstrate how benefits from MPAs are still likely to accrue by targeting seasonal aggregations and critical life history stages and through other management techniques.

show abstract

“…The large populations of black-legged kittiwakes and northern fulmars that breed in the U.K. have long been known to frequent Newfoundland waters 30 , and these movements have been corroborated by recent telemetry studies 31 . Further, recent telemetry information reveals that millions of pelagic seabirds breeding all across the Atlantic congregate over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the central North Atlantic at all times of year 32 , making a pelagic transmission route a possibility. From the pelagic wintering grounds off Newfoundland, a species that uses both pelagic and coastal habitats, possibly a gull, may have brought the virus to shore in St. John’s.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transatlantic spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 by wild birds from Europe to North America in 2021

Caliendo

Lewis

Pohlmann

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

150

171

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses of the A/Goose/Guangdong/1/1996 lineage (GsGd), which threaten the health of poultry, wildlife and humans, are spreading across Asia, Europe, Africa and North America but are currently absent from South America and Oceania. In December 2021, H5N1 HPAI viruses were detected in poultry and a free-living gull in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Our phylogenetic analysis showed that these viruses were most closely related to HPAI GsGd viruses circulating in northwestern Europe in spring 2021. Our analysis of wild bird migration suggested that these viruses may have been carried across the Atlantic via Iceland, Greenland/Arctic or pelagic routes. The here documented incursion of HPAI GsGd viruses into North America raises concern for further virus spread across the Americas by wild bird migration.

show abstract

Multispecies tracking reveals a major seabird hotspot in the North Atlantic

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 57 publications

References 57 publications

Year-round distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations: applications for population management and marine spatial planning

Year-round distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations: applications for population management and marine spatial planning

Mismatches in scale between highly mobile marine megafauna and marine protected areas

Transatlantic spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 by wild birds from Europe to North America in 2021

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About