Can polar seabirds really adapt to climate change?

动物适应环境的能力对种群在不断变化的气候中生存至关重要。然而，我们知道环境不仅在平均条件下发生变化，而且在这些条件的变化程度上也发生了变化。虽然人们普遍认为，性状的变异对于适应不断变化的环境的可塑性是必要的，但动物行为和生活史性状的变异并没有得到很好的理解。觅食行为受到环境的强烈影响，但直到最近才有研究表明，这种行为的可变性可能使个体能够适应气候变化。考虑到极地环境正在以前所未有的速度变化，并且存在一些海鸟的最佳觅食数据，本项目将重点关注极地海鸟。利用北极和南极海鸟种群中已有的和新收集的生物学数据，量化觅食特征组的均值和方差2。比较和对比个体、种群和物种之间的差异，并将其与生活史特征和种群趋势联系起来。利用各种气候指数和当地环境指标考察觅食行为如何随着时间的推移而变化，作为环境变化的函数4。利用未来气候模型预测物种对环境变化的脆弱性——新颖性和时代性迄今为止，工作主要集中在平均觅食行为上，但特征的差异对适应至关重要，特别是考虑到气候变异本身的已知变化。尽管有丰富的生物学数据可用于研究海鸟觅食，但研究往往集中在单一性状和单一环境影响的物种上。该项目将使用气候模型，结合新的建模技术，使我们不仅能够了解单个特征的平均值如何变化，而且能够了解多个特征的方差如何变化

The ability of animals to adapt to their environment is crucial for populations to persist in a changing climate. However, we know that the environment changes not only in the average conditions, but also in how variable those conditions are. While it widely accepted that variation in traits is necessary for plasticity in response to a changing environment, variability in behavioural and life-history traits in animals is not well understood.Foraging behaviour is strongly influenced by the environment but only recently have studies shown that it is variability in this behaviour that may allow individual to adapt to climate change. Given the environment at the poles is changing at an unprecedented rate, and some of the best foraging data exists for seabirds, this project will focus on polar seabirds.Objectives1. Quantify the mean and variance in suites of foraging traits using pre-existing and newly collected biologging data from Arctic and Antarctic seabird populations2. Compare and contrast differences between individuals, populations and species and link this to life-history traits and population trends3. Using a variety of climate indices and local environmental metrics examine how foraging behaviour changes over time as a function of environmental variability4. Using future climate models to predict the vulnerability of species to environmental changeNovelty and timelinessTo date, work has focused on average foraging behaviour, but the variance in traits is crucial for adaptation, particularly given known changes in climate variability itself. Despite the abundance of biologging data available to study seabird foraging, research has often focused on single traits and species with single environmental effects. This project will use climate models, in conjunction with novel modelling techniques, to allow us to understand not only how the mean of a single trait changes, but how the variance in multiple traits change