Foraging and migratory ecology of eastern Canadian seabirds

最近的技术进步彻底改变了我们调查动物行为基本问题的能力，这些问题以前超出了科学审查的范围。使用卫星记录位置以及温度、压力和光照水平的微型数据存储标签可以贴在自由活动的海鸟身上，以调查它们如何在世界海洋中移动和利用资源和栖息地。这项建议建立在一个生态系统研究计划的基础上，并试图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和生态。研究涉及一组海鸟(剪毛鸟、海雀、天鹅)，它们的身体和种群大小不一，觅食行为各异，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性变化。年度内和年度间的研究将比较个别海鸟的小规模(海湾规模的觅食)和大规模(海洋规模的迁徙)的运动和行为。通过将这些研究与基于群体和船舶的研究相结合，将最大限度地加强与海鸟栖息的生态系统的联系。群体研究记录了雏鸟的饮食和成功，船只研究绘制了鸟类和鱼类的分布及其环境联系，为海洋行为提供了理论基础。海湾和海洋规模的栖息地利用和营养相互作用将通过将觅食地点的海鸟活动和水温与从船只和卫星获得的环境信息以及生物化学分析结合起来确定。觅食和迁徙活动的变化将被用来评估环境条件如何在个人层面上调整行为的灵活性和持久性。这一理解是至关重要的，因为社会觅食和繁殖海洋鸟类的这些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.