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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
Annual variation in diets, feeding locations and foraging behaviour of gannets in the North Sea: Flexibility, consistency and constraint
Marine Ecology Progress Series, Volume 338, Year 2007
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Description
Many seabirds nesting in areas bordering the North Sea have recently experienced large annual variation in breeding success, including reproductive failures in some cases. In contrast, the breeding success of northern gannets Morus bassanus has remained remarkably stable. The present study examines data from the large gannet colony at the Bass Rock (southeast Scotland) across 3 years, to assess the extent to which such stability may reflect both flexibility and consistency in diets and foraging behaviour. Adults exhibited great flexibility both in the species and sizes of prey consumed and in foraging trip durations, ranges and total distances travelled. They also showed a high degree of consistency in bearings of foraging trips and in behaviour at sea; the sinuosity of foraging tracks and average speed of travel was very similar each year and birds in all years spent about half their time at sea in flight. Adults returned to the nest at higher speeds from more distant foraging locations up to ca. 300 km from the colony, but speeds decreased for the farthest destinations (>ca. 400 km). Moreover, the relationship between trip duration and distances travelled at sea was asymptotic beyond ca. 60 h. These non-linear relationships probably reflected constraints on energy expenditure during flight. As a result, nest attendance was low in years with long average trip durations and chicks were left unattended and vulnerable to attack by conspecifics. These data suggest that while adults have so far been able to maintain high reproductive success in years of low prey availability, they may not be able to do so in future years if providing sufficient food for chicks entails any further increases in trip duration or foraging effort. © Inter-Research 2007.
Authors & Co-Authors
Hamer, Keith C.
Unknown Affiliation
Humphreys, Elizabeth M.
Unknown Affiliation
Garthe, Stefan
Unknown Affiliation
Hennicke, Janos C.
Unknown Affiliation
Peters, Gerrit
Unknown Affiliation
Grémillet, David
Unknown Affiliation
Phillips, Richard A.
Unknown Affiliation
Harris, Michael P.
Unknown Affiliation
Wanless, Sarah
Unknown Affiliation
Statistics
Citations: 160
Authors: 9
Affiliations: 9
Identifiers
Doi:
10.3354/meps338295
Research Areas
Food Security
Sexual And Reproductive Health