Nicoll, Malcolm AC;
Jaeger, Audrey;
Hector, Aurelie;
Letori, Jake;
Rocamora, Gerard;
Corre, Matthieu Le;
(2025)
Sub-colony variation in foraging behaviour and at-sea distribution of a breeding tropical seabird and consequences for marine spatial planning.
Marine Biology
, 172
, Article 6. 10.1007/s00227-024-04573-5.
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Abstract
Many species of seabirds are threatened and understanding their at-sea distributions during breeding is a priority for their conservation. Recent developments in tracking technology, data analytical frameworks and tools are proving invaluable in the identification of at-sea areas of high use and hence conservation importance, which can be used to inform marine spatial planning. However, the outputs from these frameworks and tools are contingent on the underlying tracking data, which are shaped by the myriad of decisions made when designing and implementing a tracking program. These decisions include breeding colony choice and identification of areas (sub-colonies) within the colony in which to deploy tracking devices. However, our understanding of the consequences of this on the resulting tracking data and hence identification of at-sea priority areas is limited and rarely considered. In April 2022 we tracked 196 foraging trips of 54 breeding red-footed boobies (Sula sula) at two sub-colonies (1.5 km apart) on South Island, Farquhar Atoll in south-west Seychelles. We found that foraging trip distance and duration did not differ between the two sub-colonies, but trip orientation did: resulting in sub-colony segregation at sea predominantly to the north and south of the atoll with consequences for the identification of at-sea areas of high use. Our findings indicate that sub-colony variation in at-sea distribution of breeding seabirds may be more commonplace than current research suggests and if our tracking program had involved only one sub-colony then key outputs which could serve towards marine spatial planning efforts may be biased.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Sub-colony variation in foraging behaviour and at-sea distribution of a breeding tropical seabird and consequences for marine spatial planning |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00227-024-04573-5 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-024-04573-5 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Biologging, Booby, GPS logger, Marine Protected Area, KBA, Seabird, Track2KBA, Within colony |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10201088 |
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