Foraging and migratory ecology of eastern Canadian seabirds

最近的技术进步已经彻底改变了我们调查动物行为中以前超出科学审查的基本问题的能力。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使用资源和栖息地。该提案建立在生态系统研究计划的基础上，旨在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。研究涉及一系列海鸟（剪水、海雀、塘鹅），它们的体型和种群大小以及觅食行为各不相同，以不同海洋区域不同深度的甲壳类动物、鱿鱼和鱼类为食。研究将探讨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。年度内和年度间研究将比较个别海鸟的小规模（海湾规模觅食）和大规模（海洋规模迁徙）移动和行为。通过将这些研究与群体和船只研究相结合，将最大限度地加强与海鸟所处生态系统的联系。群体研究记录了小鸡的饮食和成功，船只研究绘制了鸟类和鱼类的分布及其环境关联，为海上行为提供了理论依据。在海湾和海洋尺度上的生境利用和营养相互作用将通过将觅食地点的海鸟运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相结合来确定。觅食和迁徙活动的变化将用于评估环境条件如何调节个体行为的灵活性和持久性。这种理解是必不可少的，因为这些行为反应之间的社会觅食和繁殖的海洋鸟类提供的机制，最终出现的人口模式。

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.