Winged ghosts wandering the oceans: the global spatial ecology and conservation of the world’s smallest and elusive seabirds, the storm petrel (Hydrobatidae & Oceanitidae), across the Mediterranean and the North East Atlantic Ocean

全球社会正在参与绿色转型进程，以减缓全球变化，并将重点放在海洋环境方面。然而，对低碳技术的大量投资和向可再生能源（即海上风能和太阳能发电场）的迅速转变在很大程度上影响了海洋环境。这些可再生能源基础设施的发展需要避免对海洋和沿海生境产生有害影响。同样，国际渔业政策最近优先考虑海洋水产养殖，以确保许多国家的全球粮食和营养安全，而不了解其对海洋环境的实际影响。了解自由放养动物的空间生态，包括它们的分布、运动和迁徙、它们的物候和饮食，有助于更好地管理和保护它们。例如，只关注繁殖区的迁徙种群保护工作不能保护这些种群免受迁徙路线或非繁殖区面临的威胁。动物运动和迁徙也很重要，因为它们会影响许多物种的行为、生活史甚至解剖结构。此外，迁徙和摄食行为在物种和种群内部和种群之间可能有所不同，因此，必须确定在每个这些级别上使用的路线和非繁殖区，尤其是因为它们也可能与不同的威胁有关。此外，对不同种群的研究还有助于了解该物种的空间生态是否受遗传和/或环境变量的驱动。一种确定迁徙物种的运动和非繁殖分布的方法，最近甚至是最小的物种，是使用轻型地理定位器。此外，现在最小的GPS设备从0.95 g就可以追踪到精细的运动。风暴海燕（水海燕科和海海燕科）是最小的海鸟，通常只有在繁殖期的陆地上，研究人员才能接触到它们。因此，当它们在海上某个地方迁徙并通常换羽毛的时候，在这段时间之外研究它们特别具有挑战性。已知大多数物种在繁殖季节优先以浮游鱼和浮游动物为食，通常这些猎物会被消耗掉一定比例的微塑料。尽管风暴海燕与近海人类活动的相互作用已经得到了部分研究，但本研究旨在收集这些研究较少的分类群的全球空间生态的关键知识，并有助于评估欧洲海域海洋生物多样性和人类活动对其影响的知识缺口。

Global societies are engaged in green transition processes to mitigate global changes, with large efforts focussed on marine environments. However, the large investment in low-carbon technologies and the rapid shift to renewable energy sources (i.e. offshore wind and solar farms) largely affects marine environments. The development of these renewable energy infrastructures needs to avoid detrimental impacts on marine and coastal habitats. Similarly, international fishery policies have recently prioritised marine aquaculture to ensure global food and nutrition security of many states, without knowing their real impact on marine environments. Understanding the spatial ecology of free-ranging fauna including their distributions, movements and migrations, their phenology and their diets, lead to better management and conservation. For instance, conservation efforts of migratory populations that focus solely on breeding areas cannot safe-guard these populations against threats faced along migration routes or in non-breeding areas. Animal movement and migration are also important because they influence the behaviour, the life histories and even the anatomy of many species. Moreover, migratory and feeding behaviours may differ within and among species and populations, and therefore, it is essential to identify the routes and non-breeding areas used at each of these levels, all the more so because they may also be associated with different threats. Furthermore, the study of different populations can also help understand whether the spatial ecology of the species is driven by genetic and/or environmental variables. One way to determine the movements and non-breeding distributions of migratory species, recently even for the smallest species, is by using light-level geolocators. In addition, fine-scale movements can be tracked now by the smallest GPS device from just 0.95 g. Storm petrels (families Hydrobatidae and Oceanitidae) are the smallest seabirds and they are normally only accessible to researchers when at land in the colonies during breeding. They are thus particularly challenging to study outside this period when they are somewhere at sea and during which they migrate and usually moult their feathers. Most species are known to feed preferentially on ichthyoplankton and zooplankton during the breeding season, and often these prey is consumed along with a relevant proportion of microplastics. Even though the interaction of storm petrels with offshore anthropogenic activities has been partially studied, the present proposal aims at gathering key knowledge on the global spatial ecology of these poorly researched taxa, and contributing to assess knowledge gaps on marine biodiversity and anthropogenic impacts on it along European seas.