TY - JOUR
TI - Year-round distribution of Northeast Atlantic seabird populations: applications for population management and marine spatial planning
AU - Fauchald, P
AU - Tarroux, A
AU - Amélineau, F
AU - Bråthen, V
AU - Descamps, S
AU - Ekker, M
AU - Helgason, H
AU - Johansen, M
AU - Merkel, B
AU - Moe, B
AU - Åström, J
AU - Anker-Nilssen, T
AU - Bjørnstad, O
AU - Chastel, O
AU - Christensen-Dalsgaard, S
AU - Danielsen, J
AU - Daunt, F
AU - Dehnhard, N
AU - Erikstad, K
AU - Ezhov, A
AU - Gavrilo, M
AU - Hallgrimsson, G
AU - Hansen, E
AU - Harris, M
AU - Helberg, M
AU - Jónsson, J
AU - Kolbeinsson, Y
AU - Krasnov, Y
AU - Langset, M
AU - Lorentsen, S
AU - Lorentzen, E
AU - Newell, M
AU - Olsen, B
AU - Reiertsen, T
AU - Systad, G
AU - Thompson, P
AU - Thórarinsson, T
AU - Wanless, S
AU - Wojczulanis-Jakubas, K
AU - Strøm, H
T2 - Marine Ecology Progress Series
AB - Tracking data of marine predators are increasingly used in marine spatial management. We developed a spatial data set with estimates of the monthly distribution of 6 pelagic seabird species breeding in the Northeast Atlantic. The data set was based on year-round global location sensor (GLS) tracking data of 2356 adult seabirds from 2006-2019 from a network of seabird colonies, data describing the physical environment and data on seabird population sizes. Tracking and environmental data were combined in monthly species distribution models (SDMs). Cross-validations were used to assess the transferability of models between years and breeding locations. The analyses showed that birds from colonies close to each other (<500 km apart) used the same nonbreeding habitats, while birds from distant colonies (>1000 km) used colony-specific and, in many cases, non-overlapping habitats. Based on these results, the SDM from the nearest model colony was used to predict the distribution of all seabird colonies lying within a species-specific cut-off distance (400-500 km). Uncertainties in the predictions were estimated by cluster bootstrap sampling. The resulting data set consisted of 4692 map layers, each layer predicting the densities of birds from a given species, colony and month across the North Atlantic. This data set represents the annual distribution of 23.5 million adult pelagic seabirds, or 87% of the Northeast Atlantic breeding population of the study species. We show how the data set can be used in population and spatial management applications, including the detection of population-specific nonbreeding habitats and identifying populations influenced by marine protected areas.
DA - 2021/10//
PY - 2021
VL - 676
SP - 255
EP - 276
UR - https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v676/p255-276/
DO - 10.3354/meps13854
LA - English
KW - Birds
KW - Seabirds
ER -