With an aim to identify the characteristics of the best foraging areas for black guillemots (Cepphus grylle), researchers in SEAPOP have studied foraging behaviour and habitat use of black guillemots at three breeding locations along the Norwegian coast. Although differences in foraging activity and habitat use were found, one parameter in particular stood out as the most important.

Mercury is known to have an adverse effect on animal wildlife, and mercury contamination has increased through anthropogenic inputs. A new study examines the mercury exposure and the potential health risks for 36 Arctic seabirds and shorebirds.

Successful breeding is crucial, but climate change can make timing of breeding more demanding. A new study including data from several colonies monitored throughout the SEAPOP programme has now examined how seabirds adjust their breeding phenology.

Negative trends for populations with low productivity can be somewhat mitigated by adults living longer.

Using a comprehensive set of tracking data from five seabird species in the North Atlantic and a model for estimating energy consumption, researchers have investigated how severe winter storms may impact the seabird community and eventually lead to seabird mass mortality.

Human activity in the coastal zone is increasing worldwide, including Norway. Aquaculture, kelp harvesting, fisheries, increasing boat and ship traffic present sources of disturbance and pose a variety of potential threats to seabirds.

By using a more than 100-year-old record of a puffin Fratercula arctica chick harvest on Iceland, researchers have found a relationship between ocean temperatures and production of puffin chicks.

How do seabirds find enough food to survive the darkness of winter? In a study on colonies in Great Britain, Iceland and Norway, researchers used geolocators to reveal that European shags adopt various strategies to handle the winter darkness.

The NorthWind research centre on wind energy launched its activities today with its first General Assembly.  

130 years of catch data show that global warming is contributing to population decline in the world's largest puffin colony.

Changes in seabird breeding productivity reflect hemispheric differences in ocean warming and human use, and call out the need for policies that reduce the impacts of climate change on the world’s marine ecosystems. 

This study signals the need for fisheries management to account for ecosystem constraints when setting catch limits in periods of low forage fish biomass.

Reduced availability of key prey forces adult puffins to fly further from their colonies to find food. Meanwhile, their chicks starve at the nests.

Using data from five different marine ecosystems, researchers have tested the hypothesis of predator‐pit dynamics for forage fish. By examining the consumption of fish by seabirds and the effect of such predation on fish population dynamics, they found that seabird-induced mortality of forage fish varies with fish abundance.

More than a quarter of the individual auks in which mercury levels were measured outside the breeding season exceeded the toxicity threshold.

Offshore oil rigs serve as a breeding refuge for Norwegian Black-legged Kittiwakes. Although they are few in number, these birds produce more chicks than kittiwakes in natural colonies along the coast, to the benefit of the impoverished

The Circumpolar Seabird Group under CAFF and the Arctic Council has proposed a conservation plan for the black-legged kittiwake Rissa tridactyla, a species which has been declining severely

Foraging shags and commercial kelp harvesters very often utilize the same marine areas.

• 2 July 2018
• Author: juliet.landro
• Number of views: 9433