Project LOMVIA: Linking Oceanography and Multi-specific, spatially-Variable Interactions of seabirds and their prey in the Arctic

The rate of climate warming in the Arctic is among the most rapid on the planet, with dramatic effects upon ice, atmosphere and oceans of the region. Loss of sea ice is one of the most striking effects of warming, and an ice-free summer Arctic Ocean is predicted within a few decades. Sea ice margins are a highly productive habitat and its loss has profound influences on Arctic food-webs. The retreat of sea ice also opens the Arctic up to fisheries, shipping and oil exploration which may further threaten biodiversity. Intrusion of Atlantic water northwards has resulted in temperate plankton and fish species extending their range into Arctic waters which has altered food-webs. As the "nearest neighbours" of the Arctic states, the UK and Germany have a particular interest in understanding the risks and opportunities that these changes in the Arctic Ocean may present.

Accordingly, NERC launched the Changing Arctic Ocean programme to better understand impacts of warming upon Arctic marine food-webs. This resulted in funding of four excellent research projects that address the effects of climate change upon Arctic ecosystems, but significant gaps remain, including that of characterising the linkages of fish and seabirds to the wider Arctic food-web. Seabirds play a significant role in the functioning of food-webs, have considerable economic and cultural value and deliver important ecosystem services in the Arctic. Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on seabird habitats in the Arctic. The sea ice margin is highly productive and forms an important foraging habitat for seabirds. Its retreat away from their land-based breeding colonies can cause switching to other habitats, including meltwater plumes from glaciers, frontal zones or upwellings over bathymetric features which may be less productive for foraging. The range expansion of southerly species into the Arctic may further affect predator, prey and competitive interactions, thus increasing Arctic species' sensitivity to warming. All these processes are likely to alter Arctic food-webs and populations of seabirds that depend upon them. Indeed, many Arctic seabird species populations are in decline in response to ocean warming.

This project focuses on two closely related guillemot species: Brünnich's (an Arctic species) and common (a temperate one) which comprise over half of the seabird biomass in the north Atlantic. The study will be conducted in Iceland which represents an "Arctic in miniature" owing to complex current flows from Polar, sub-Arctic and temperate water masses meeting around the coast and creating dramatic spatial gradients in oceanography and sea ice conditions within a relatively small area. A warming event over the past decade has altered fish distributions and adversely affected seabird breeding success and population trends. We will examine variation in habitat use and food-webs links of, and competition among, the two species of guillemot across these gradients in environmental variability and quantify the response of colony size to habitat availability.

To achieve this we have assembled an international team who are world-leaders in the latest techniques in wildlife telemetry, stable isotope analysis and ecological modelling. Our project will improve our understanding of Arctic seabird habitat use, marine distribution and diets which will help to inform evidence-based conservation strategies, including marine spatial planning and ecologically sensitive fisheries management. We have formulated a broad and detailed impact plan to ensure the projects findings achieve policy and management outcomes, as well as reaching a wider public audience.

We will achieve wider impacts across a broad sector of society using a variety of approaches:

Policy makers: We will achieve policy impact via the Convention for Arctic Flora and Fauna using the PI's membership of the CAFF Bird (CBIRD) group which includes representatives from all Arctic member states, observers from neighbouring states and reports directly to the CAFF secretariat in Iceland. CAFF itself provides environmental policy advice to the Arctic Council. We will also liaise with the NERC Arctic Office to make our findings relevant to UK policy-making. The project will raise the UK's profile as the Arctic's "nearest neighbour" and pave the way to further collaborations relating to environmental research and management between the UK and Arctic member states.

Conservationists: Our findings will assist with diagnosing how environmental change is affecting Arctic seabirds, which will be of interest to a range of wildlife charities (e.g. BirdLife International, RSPB, WWF, Iceland Nature Research Centres, NABU). Knowledge of drivers of population change will help to inform their advocacy work relating to climate change and stimulate investigation of management that might compensate for observed climate impacts (e.g. stricter regulation of seabird harvests or bycath by/competition from fisheries). The PI has existing strong links to these NGOs and so results will be readily transferable through correspondence, dialogue and talks at their institutions.

The public: The Arctic is a wild frontier that captures the public imagination, so the results of our research will be readily communicated to a wide and receptive audience. We will achieve this via the Arctic Office website, newsletter fieldwork blogs and a Twitter account. Articles for the popular media will be developed in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey Press Office.

Schools: We will reach school children via links on the award-winning "Discovering the Arctic" website that provides a range of interactive online material that supports curriculum-based learning for 14-16 year olds. The project will also be active in arranging talks to schools in the Cambridgeshire area, using the PI's links with the Anglia Learning multi-academy trust, gained though his role as a school governor.