Acoustic Tracking of Ocean Wanderers: Revealing Behavioural Context on the Wing

近几十年来，世界海鸟的状况恶化，有几个物种濒临灭绝。海鸟经常在渔船附近觅食，导致每年大量海鸟在延绳钓和拖网渔业中意外死亡。确定个体是否成群觅食，这些群体的物种组成，以及渔船相互作用的发生（例如，它们发生在哪里，涉及多少物种）将提供有关海鸟觅食行为性质的宝贵信息，特别是脆弱物种和濒临灭绝的物种。这项研究计划提出将联合收割机与低噪音相结合，全球定位系统记录器的成本记录和评估海鸟在海上觅食的行为和背景。这些记录应该揭示这些个体是否在群体中觅食（通过记录中呼叫的分布），他们是否与其他物种一起觅食（通过识别记录中的物种），以及他们是否可能在觅食期间与渔船接触。通过了解在海上觅食和映射海鸟和渔业之间的重叠物种内和物种间的社会相互作用，本研究旨在确定缓解措施和保护工作，以保护海鸟的生活在最需要的地方和时间。

Over recent decades, the status of the world's seabirds has deteriorated, with several species heading towards extinction. Seabirds often forage near fishing vessels resulting in huge numbers of seabirds being killed accidentally in longline and trawl fisheries every year. Determining whether individuals forage in groups, the species composition of these groups, and the occurrence of fishing vessel interactions (for example, where they occur and how many species are involved) would provide invaluable information regarding the nature of seabird foraging behaviour, especially of vulnerable species and those threatened with extinction.This research project proposes to combine miniature audio recording devices with low-cost GPS loggers to record and assess the behaviour and context of seabirds foraging at sea. Such recordings should reveal whether these individuals are foraging in groups (by the distribution of calls in the recordings), whether they forage with other species (by identifying species in recordings) and potentially whether they come in to contact with fishing vessels during foraging. By understanding intra and inter-species social interactions during foraging at sea and mapping the overlap between seabirds and fisheries, this study aims to identify mitigating measures and conservation efforts to protect seabird life where and when they are most needed.