Foraging and migratory ecology of eastern Canadian seabirds

最近的技术进步彻底改变了我们研究动物行为基本问题的能力，这些问题以前是科学研究无法解决的。微型数据存储标签可以使用卫星记录位置，以及温度、压力和光照水平，可以贴在自由放养的海鸟身上，以调查它们如何在世界海洋中移动和利用资源和栖息地。该提案建立在一个生态系统研究项目的基础上，并寻求应用这项新技术来探索加拿大东部海鸟的全年觅食和迁徙行为以及生态。研究对象是一组海鸟（海鸥、海雀、塘鹅），它们的体型、种群大小和觅食行为都不同，以不同海洋区域不同深度的甲壳类动物、鱿鱼和鱼类为食。研究将探索不断变化的环境条件如何影响海鸟的行为策略，以及它们如何应对季节变化。年内和年际研究将比较单个海鸟的小尺度（海湾尺度觅食）和大尺度（海洋尺度迁徙）运动和行为。通过将这些研究与群体和船只研究结合起来，将最大限度地提高与海鸟所处生态系统的联系。群体研究记录了雏鸡的饮食和成功，船只研究绘制了鸟类和鱼类的分布及其环境关联，为海上行为提供了依据。生境利用和海湾和海洋尺度上的营养相互作用将通过综合海鸟运动和觅食地点的水温、从船只和卫星获得的环境信息以及生物化学分析来确定。觅食和迁徙活动的变化将用于评估环境条件如何在个体水平上调节行为的灵活性和持久性。这种理解是必不可少的，因为这些群居觅食和繁殖海鸟之间的行为反应提供了最终导致种群模式出现的机制。

Recent technical advances have revolutionized our capability to investigate basic questions in animal behaviour that were previously beyond scientific scrutiny. Miniaturized data storage tags that record location using satellites, as well as temperature, pressure and light level, can be attached to free-ranging seabirds to investigate how they move throughout and use resources and habitats in the world's oceans. This proposal builds on an ecosystem research program and seeks to apply this new technology to explore the year-round foraging and migratory behaviour and ecology of eastern Canadian seabirds. Studies engage a suite of seabirds (shearwaters, auks, gannets) that span a range of body and population sizes and foraging behaviours and that feed on crustaceans, squid and fish at various depths in different ocean regions. Studies will explore how changing environmental conditions influence the seabirds' behavioural tactics and how they contend with seasonal changes. Intra- and inter-annual studies will compare the small (bay-scale foraging) and large (ocean-scale migration) scale movements and behaviour of individual seabirds. Linkages with the ecosystems in which seabirds are embedded will be maximized by integrating these studies with colony and vessel-based research. Colony studies document chick diets and success, and vessel studies map avian and fish distributions and their environmental associations, providing rationale for behaviour at sea. Habitat use and trophic interactions at the bay and ocean scales will be determined by integrating seabird movements and water temperatures in foraging locations with environmental information obtained from vessels and satellites and with biochemical analyses. Changes in foraging and migration activities will be used to evaluate how environmental conditions modulate behavioural flexibility and persistence at the individual level. This understanding is essential because these behavioural responses among socially foraging and breeding marine birds provide the mechanisms that culminate in the emergence of population patterns.