Workshop on Antarctic Seabird Population Trends

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9907950FraserLong-term studies on changes in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic seabird populations are presently emerging as important tools for monitoring the effects of human activity, and for understanding and modeling interactions between climate change and ecosystem responses. Despite research that in some regions now spans five decades, attempts to integrate the existing population data have been limited to qualitative assessments focused primarily on the penguins. This means that the status of many Southern Ocean seabirds remains essentially unknown. Also, for the species whose population status in known, it has not been possible to discern if the trends in evidence are statistically significant. This has created a serious deficiency in our ability to detect and understand the causal factors affecting seabird population and to translate this knowledge into basic and applied research, including the management of Antarctic marine living resources. This award will provide partial support for an international workshop with the following objectives: to identify and catalogue existing long-term data bases on Antarctic and sub-Antarctic seabird populations, to subject the extant data to rigorous statistical analysis with the aim of determining the scope, magnitude and significance of the population trends, and to disseminate the results to relevant Antarctic scientific working groups and the general research community.