scholarly journals Birds of a feather moult together: Differences in moulting distribution of four species of storm-petrels

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0245756
Author(s):  
Anne N. M. A. Ausems ◽  
Grzegorz Skrzypek ◽  
Katarzyna Wojczulanis-Jakubas ◽  
Dariusz Jakubas

The non-breeding period of pelagic seabirds, and particularly the moulting stage, is an important, but understudied part of their annual cycle as they are hardly accessible outside of the breeding period. Knowledge about the moulting ecology of seabirds is important to understand the challenges they face outside and within the breeding season. Here, we combined stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) signatures of rectrices grown during the non-breeding period of two pairs of storm-petrel species breeding in the northern (European storm-petrel, Hydrobates pelagicus, ESP; Leach’s storm-petrel, Hydrobates leucorhous, LSP) and southern (black-bellied storm-petrel, Fregetta tropica, BBSP; Wilson’s storm-petrel, Oceanites oceanicus, WSP) hemispheres to determine differences in moulting ranges within and between species. To understand clustering patterns in δ13C and δ18O moulting signatures, we examined various variables: species, sexes, years, morphologies (feather growth rate, body mass, tarsus length, wing length) and δ15N. We found that different factors could explain the differences within and between the four species. We additionally employed a geographical distribution prediction model based on oceanic δ13C and δ18O isoscapes, combined with chlorophyll-a concentrations and observational data to predict potential moulting areas of the sampled feather type. The northern species were predicted to moult in temperate and tropical Atlantic zones. BBSP was predicted to moult on the southern hemisphere north of the Southern Ocean, while WSP was predicted to moult further North, including in the Arctic and northern Pacific. While moulting distribution can only be estimated on large geographical scales using δ13C and δ18O, validating predictive outcomes with food availability proxies and observational data may provide valuable insights into important moulting grounds. Establishing those, in turn, is important for conservation management of elusive pelagic seabirds.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid L. Pollet ◽  
Alexander L. Bond ◽  
April Hedd ◽  
Charles E. Huntington ◽  
Ronald G. Butler ◽  
...  

1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles E. Huntington ◽  
Ronald G. Butler ◽  
Robert Mauck

Ibis ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. Whittington ◽  
Bruce M. Dyer ◽  
Robert J.M. Crawford ◽  
Anthony J. Williams

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Cai ◽  
Vladimir A. Alexeev ◽  
Christopher D. Arp ◽  
Benjamin M. Jones ◽  
Anna Liljedahl ◽  
...  

Abstract. Climatic changes are most pronounced in northern high latitude regions. Yet, there is a paucity of observational data, both spatially and temporally, such that regional-scale dynamics are not fully captured, limiting our ability to make reliable projections. In this study, a group of dynamical downscaling products were created for the period 1950 to 2100 to better understand climate change and its impacts on hydrology, permafrost, and ecosystems at a resolution suitable for northern Alaska. An ERA-interim reanalysis dataset and the Community Earth System Model (CESM) served as the forcing mechanisms in this dynamical downscaling framework, and the Weather Research & Forecast (WRF) model, embedded with an optimization for the Arctic (Polar WRF), served as the Regional Climate Model (RCM). This downscaled output consists of multiple climatic variables (precipitation, temperature, wind speed, dew point temperature, and surface air pressure) for a 10 km grid spacing at three-hour intervals. The modeling products were evaluated and calibrated using a bias-correction approach. The ERA-interim forced WRF (ERA-WRF) produced reasonable climatic variables as a result, yielding a more closely correlated temperature field than precipitation field when long-term monthly climatology was compared with its forcing and observational data. A linear scaling method then further corrected the bias, based on ERA-interim monthly climatology, and bias-corrected ERA-WRF fields were applied as a reference for calibration of both the historical and the projected CESM forced WRF (CESM-WRF) products. Biases, such as, a cold temperature bias during summer and a warm temperature bias during winter as well as a wet bias for annual precipitation that CESM holds over northern Alaska persisted in CESM-WRF runs. The linear scaling of CESM-WRF eventually produced high-resolution downscaling products for the Alaskan North Slope for hydrological and ecological research, together with the calibrated ERA-WRF run, and its capability extends far beyond that. Other climatic research has been proposed, including exploration of historical and projected climatic extreme events and their possible connections to low-frequency sea-atmospheric oscillations, as well as near-surface permafrost degradation and ice regime shifts of lakes. These dynamically downscaled, bias corrected climatic datasets provide improved spatial and temporal resolution data necessary for ongoing modeling efforts in northern Alaska focused on reconstructing and projecting hydrologic changes, ecosystem processes and responses, and permafrost thermal regimes. The dynamical downscaling methods presented in this study can also be used to create more suitable model input datasets for other sub-regions of the Arctic. Supplementary data are available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.863625.


2008 ◽  
Vol 69 (03) ◽  
pp. 404-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heikki Seppä ◽  
Glen M. MacDonald ◽  
H. John B. Birks ◽  
Bruce R. Gervais ◽  
Jeffrey A. Snyder

We present two new quantitative July mean temperature (Tjul) reconstructions from the Arctic tree-line region in the Kola Peninsula in north-western Russia. The reconstructions are based on fossil pollen records and cover the Younger Dryas stadial and the Holocene. The inferred temperatures are less reliable during the Younger Dryas because of the poorer fit between the fossil pollen samples and the modern samples in the calibration set than during the Holocene. The results suggest that the Younger Dryas Tjulin the region was 8.0–10.0°C, being 2.0–3.0°C lower than at present. The Holocene summer temperature maximum dates to 7500–6500 cal yr BP, with Tjulabout 1.5°C higher than at present. These new records contribute to our understanding of summer temperature changes along the northern-European tree-line region. The Holocene trends are consistent in most of the independent records from the Fennoscandian–Kola tree-line region, with the beginning of the Holocene thermal maximum no sooner than at about 8000 cal yr BP. In the few existing temperature-related records farther east in the Russian Arctic tree line, the period of highest summer temperature begins already at about 10,000 cal yr BP. This difference may reflect the strong influence of the Atlantic coastal current on the atmospheric circulation pattern and the thermal behaviour of the tree-line region on the Atlantic seaboard, and the more direct influence of the summer solar insolation on summer temperature in the region east of the Kola Peninsula.


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