Drivers and demographic consequences of seabird foraging strategies in a changing environment

不断变化的环境中海鸟觅食策略的驱动因素和人口统计后果

• 批准号: 2882488
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Bangor University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2882488
• 关键词: Drivers; demographic; consequences; seabird; foraging

Coastal marine ecosystems are undergoing rapid change due to multiple anthropogenic impacts including overfishing, climate change, pollution and renewable energy generation (1). These changes have important impacts on marine organisms, including top predators such as seabirds, and have led to increased concern for protected populations (2). Understanding how seabirds adjust their behaviour with respect to spatio-temporal variation in their environment and food resources to shape energetics and demography is crucial for predicting their ability to cope with future environmental change, and for devising effective conservation measures (3). Individual foraging decisions are shaped by a range of environmental drivers including availability of suitable habitat, oceanographic and weather conditions (4, 5, 6). Foraging strategies are also influenced by intrinsic factors such as sex, body condition, breeding stage, or interactions with other individuals including use of social information and negotiation of offspring provisioning effort between breeding partners (7, 8). However, while plasticity in seabird foraging behaviour is well documented, robust understanding of how key drivers shape responses to environmental change is lacking which hinders our ability to quantify and predict impacts of anthropogenic activities on protected species, delaying our ability to deliver offshore renewable energy capacity needed to meet net zero targets.This project will use one of the most extensive datasets on seabird at-sea activity, location and demography in the world, spanning 35 years, as well as additional targeted data collection to determine key drivers and demographic consequences of foraging strategies in an inshore, benthic-foraging species, the European shag. The project aims to: (1) identify drivers of foraging behaviour across a range of environmental conditions and population densities; (2) determine the consequences of foraging strategies for productivity and survival; and (3) forecast impacts of change in productivity and survival on population trajectories under different scenarios of future human activity.

由于过度捕捞、气候变化、污染和可再生能源发电等多种人为影响，沿海海洋生态系统正在发生迅速变化（1）。这些变化对海洋生物有重要影响，包括海鸟等顶级捕食者，并导致对受保护种群的日益关注。了解海鸟如何根据环境和食物资源的时空变化调整其行为，以塑造能量学和人口统计学，对于预测其科普未来环境变化的能力以及制定有效的保护措施至关重要。个体觅食决定是由一系列环境驱动因素形成的，包括合适的栖息地，海洋和天气条件（4，5，6）。觅食策略也受到内在因素的影响，如性别，身体状况，繁殖阶段，或与其他个体的相互作用，包括使用社会信息和繁殖伙伴之间的后代供应努力的谈判（7，8）。然而，虽然海鸟觅食行为的可塑性有很好的记录，但对关键驱动因素如何塑造对环境变化的反应缺乏有力的理解，这阻碍了我们量化和预测人类活动对受保护物种的影响的能力，延迟了我们提供满足净零目标所需的海上可再生能源能力的能力。该项目将使用最广泛的海鸟海上活动数据集之一，在世界上的位置和人口，跨越35年，以及额外的有针对性的数据收集，以确定关键驱动因素和觅食战略的人口后果，在近岸，底栖觅食物种，欧洲沙格。该项目旨在：（1）确定在一系列环境条件和人口密度下觅食行为的驱动因素;（2）确定觅食策略对生产力和生存的影响;（3）预测在未来人类活动的不同情景下，生产力和生存的变化对人口轨迹的影响。