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Limited By:	Subject = Seabirds;

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Displaying Results 1 - 5 of 5 on page 1 of 1

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Assessing the distribution and vulnerability of a seabird community at sea to inform conservation and management (2018)

Critchley, Emma Jane

Assessing the distribution and vulnerability of a seabird community at sea to inform conservation and management (2018)

Critchley, Emma Jane

Abstract:

Seabirds are an apex predator in marine ecosystems and can be important bio-indicators for informing wider marine conservation and management. They face many threats from anthropogenic activities at sea but the interactions and subsequent impacts can often be difficult to monitor, particularly in pelagic regions. Ireland and Britain in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean host internationally important numbers of many seabird species. However, there are challenges in assessing their distribution at sea, not least the time and costs involved in trying to do this at the community level. The large territorial waters of both countries also provide significant prospective marine fossil fuels and renewable energy. Therefore, there is the potential for detrimental impacts to seabird populations where hotspots of seabird density overlap with marine energy activity. In this thesis I demonstrate how existing data can be combined to assess the at-sea distribution, vulnerability, and gaps in conser...

http://hdl.handle.net/10468/7822

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Assessing the effectiveness of foraging radius models for seabird distributions using biotelemetry and survey data (2019)

Critchley, Emma Jane; Grecian, W. J.; Bennison, Ashley; Kane, Adam; Wischnewski, Saskia...

Assessing the effectiveness of foraging radius models for seabird distributions using biotelemetry and survey data (2019)

Critchley, Emma Jane; Grecian, W. J.; Bennison, Ashley; Kane, Adam; Wischnewski, Saskia; Cañadas, A.; Tierney, D.; Quinn, John L.; Jessopp, Mark J.

Abstract:

Relatively simple foraging radius models have the potential to generate predictive distributions for a large number of species rapidly, thus providing a cost‐effective alternative to large‐scale surveys or complex modelling approaches. Their effectiveness, however, remains largely untested. Here we compare foraging radius distribution models for all breeding seabirds in Ireland, to distributions of empirical data collected from tracking studies and aerial surveys. At the local/colony level, we compared foraging radius distributions to GPS tracking data from seabirds with short (Atlantic puffin Fratercula arctica, and razorbill Alca torda) and long (Manx shearwater Puffinus puffinus, and European storm‐petrel Hydrobates pelagicus) foraging ranges. At the regional/national level, we compared foraging radius distributions to extensive aerial surveys conducted over a two‐year period. Foraging radius distributions were significantly positively correlated with tracking data for all specie...

http://hdl.handle.net/10468/9346

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Influence of climate change and trophic coupling across four trophic levels in the celtic sea (2018)

Lauria, Valentina; Attrill, Martin J.; Pinnegar, John K.; Brown, Andrew; Edwards, Marti...

Influence of climate change and trophic coupling across four trophic levels in the celtic sea (2018)

Lauria, Valentina; Attrill, Martin J.; Pinnegar, John K.; Brown, Andrew; Edwards, Martin; Votier, Stephen C.

Abstract:

Climate change has had profound effects upon marine ecosystems, impacting across all trophic levels from plankton to apex predators. Determining the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems requires understanding the direct effects on all trophic levels as well as indirect effects mediated by trophic coupling. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of climate change on the pelagic food web in the Celtic Sea, a productive shelf region in the Northeast Atlantic. Using long-term data, we examined possible direct and indirect 'bottom-up' climate effects across four trophic levels: phytoplankton, zooplankton, mid-trophic level fish and seabirds. During the period 1986-2007, although there was no temporal trend in the North Atlantic Oscillation index (NAO), the decadal mean Sea Surface Temperature (SST) in the Celtic Sea increased by 0.66 +/- 0.02 degrees C. Despite this, there was only a weak signal of climate change in the Celtic Sea food web. Changes in pl...

http://hdl.handle.net/10379/12390

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Presence of persistent organic pollutants in a breeding common tern (sterna hirundo) population in ireland (2018)

Acampora, Heidi; White, Philip; Lyashevska, Olga; O’Connor, Ian

Presence of persistent organic pollutants in a breeding common tern (sterna hirundo) population in ireland (2018)

Acampora, Heidi; White, Philip; Lyashevska, Olga; O’Connor, Ian

Abstract:

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are chemical compounds of environmental concern due to their toxic, persistent nature and their ability to bio-accumulate in biological tissue. Seabirds, for often being at the top of the food web, have been used as monitors of environmental pollutants. Adverse effects caused by POPs have been reported in common terns (Sterna hirundo) since the 1970s. Egg shell thinning, embryo and hatchling deformities have been reported for this species. Environmental legislation, such as the Oslo-Paris Convention (OSPAR), has agreed on the monitoring of concentration of POPs in common terns. This study set out to investigate contemporary concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) in common terns breeding in Ireland, along with congener profiles. Investigation was conducted in live (n = 15) and dead birds (n = 20) to test for the efficiency ...

http://hdl.handle.net/10379/10088

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Seabird movement reveals the ecological footprint of fishing vessels (2014)

Bodey, T.W.; Jessopp, M.J.; Votier, S.C.; Gerritsen, H.D.; Cleasby, I.R.; Hamer, K.C.; ...

Seabird movement reveals the ecological footprint of fishing vessels (2014)

Bodey, T.W.; Jessopp, M.J.; Votier, S.C.; Gerritsen, H.D.; Cleasby, I.R.; Hamer, K.C.; Patrick, S.C.; Wakefield, E.D.; Bearhop, S.

Abstract:

Exploitation of the seas is currently unsustainable, with increasing demand for marine resources placing intense pressure on the Earth’s largest ecosystem [1]. The scale of anthropogenic effects varies from local to entire ocean basins 1, 2 and 3. For example, discards of commercial capture fisheries can have both positive and negative impacts on scavengers at the population and community-level 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, although this is driven by individual foraging behaviour 3 and 7. Currently, we have little understanding of the scale at which individual animals initiate such behaviours. We use the known interaction between fisheries and a wide-ranging seabird, the Northern gannet Morus bassanus [3], to investigate how fishing vessels affect individual birds’ behaviours in near real-time. We document the footprint of fishing vessels’ (≥15 m length) influence on foraging decisions (≤11 km), and a potential underlying behavioural mechanism, by revealing how birds respond differently to vess...

http://hdl.handle.net/10793/1160

Displaying Results 1 - 5 of 5 on page 1 of 1