Project LOMVIA: Linking Oceanography and Multi-specific, spatially-Variable Interactions of seabirds and their prey in the Arctic
Lead Research Organisation:
British Antarctic Survey
Department Name: Science Programmes
Abstract
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.
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.
Planned Impact
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.
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.
Publications
Bonnet-Lebrun AS
(2022)
Cold comfort: Arctic seabirds find refugia from climate change and potential competition in marginal ice zones and fjords.
in Ambio
Bonnet-Lebrun AS
(2021)
Effects of competitive pressure and habitat heterogeneity on niche partitioning between Arctic and boreal congeners.
in Scientific reports
Patterson A
(2022)
Foraging range scales with colony size in high-latitude seabirds.
in Current biology : CB
Title | CAO Top Trump cards |
Description | We contributed to the design and cost of a Changing Arctic Ocean top trump card game, led by the PEANUTS project. This is a fun and educational game aimed at school children. We will distribute the cards during school talks over the summer, if Covid regulations allow this and schools are willing to accept visitors. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2020 |
Impact | The cards will raise awareness and knowledge of Arctic Ocean ecology among school age children in an engaging and entertaining way. |
Title | Watercolor paintings of the species studied in the project |
Description | Nicolas Smith Sanchez visited the different field sites and was involved in data collection of cod stomach samples for the stable isotope analysis component of the project. He created illustrations (paintings) of the guillemots and of codfish to be used for outreach. |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | Since it is a new output, it is too early to report on impact. |
Description | We found that the abundance and trends of Arctic Brunnich's guillemots in Iceland were explained by minimum sea surface temperatures (SST) within their foraging ranges, while the abundance of temperate common guillemots was explained by cliff area and their trends by changes in SST. Tracking data and stable isotope analysis showed that Brunnich's guillemots used refugia in coldwater currents and fjords where these were available (in NW and E Iceland) which buffered the populations against warming which caused declines of the species at other locations around Iceland. These cold refugia represent preferred habitat for the Arctic adapted species, and may have also helped avoid competition with temperate, sympatric common guillemots that tended to use warmer waters within the shared foraging ranges, although spatial overlap in the two species distributions was high at all sites. Nonetheless there was no evidence for the density of common guillemots affecting Brunnich's guillemot population trends, probably because both responded negatively to the warming of the seas around Iceland, albeit the Arctic species more so than the temperate one. We conclude that environmental change is the dominant cause of changes in Arctic species at the southern edge of their range and that cold refugia can help to buffer these effects, while competition with boreal species is a secondary or insignificant effect. Data from the LOMVIA project were also contributed to an Atlantic-wide analysis of guillemot foraging ranges, which showed that the maximum distance birds travel to forage increases in a predictable pattern with the size of the colony. This provided insights into intra-specific competition and allowed prediction of foraging ranges for all colonies in the Atlantic based on count data of the numbers of breeding pairs. |
Exploitation Route | The study has stimulated wider interest in the concepts of the relative importance of competition and environmental change in determining species trends and distributions in a warming climate, and the role of refugia in buffering high latitude species against changing climates. We are exploring ways to expand the research and the collaborations we have made through the CAO programme. These include further work in Iceland to study use of prey fields and fjords by guillemots in NW Iceland and to investigate interplay of environmental change and pollution in the Arctic and Antarctica. The foraging radii from the Current Biology paper will be of value for marine spatial planning by revealing important areas around guillemot colonies. |
Sectors | Environment |
Description | COVID 19 Grant Extension Allocation NERC British Antarctic Survey |
Amount | £196,649 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/V521218/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 06/2020 |
End | 09/2021 |
Title | GPS and Time-Depth Recorder tracking of common and Brunnich's guillemots from five colonies around Iceland, June-July 2019-2021 |
Description | We tracked 94 common and 50 Brunnich's guillemots from five colonies around Iceland (Latrabjarg, Grimsey, Langanes, Skrudur and Papey) during late incubation and chick rearing from June to July 2019. We also tracked 5 common and 3 Brunnich's guillemots from Langanes during chick-rearing in July 2020 (GPS only). We used Pathtrack nanoFix GPS loggers to record locations every 3min and Cefas G5 TDR loggers to record depth every second. The tags recorded the birds' behaviour for a few days (typically 2 to 3). The aim was to investigate the foraging behaviour of the two species and the potential competition between them. Funding was provided by NERC grant NE/R012660/1 (part of the NERC Changing Arctic Ocean programme). |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
URL | https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/01496 |
Title | Tracking data (GPS + TDR) of common and Brunnich's guillemots |
Description | This database contains tracking data - GPS and Temperature-Depth Recorders - obtained from incubating and chick-rearing common guillemots (Uria aalge) and Brunnich's guillemots (U. lomvia) at different sites around Iceland in 2019. It also contains metadata on the study individuals. This database is currently stored in the British Antarctic Survey Polar Data Centre and will be made available upon publication of the first paper of the project. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The database is not yet available to researchers outside of the project, so no notable impact outside of the projects can be reported yet. This database is currently being analyzed and is providing valuable information on the foraging behavior of the two species. |
Description | Global modelling of guillemot foraging range and habitat use. |
Organisation | McGill University |
Country | Canada |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | LOMVIA has contributed data to a global analysis of the foraging ranges of guillemots in relation to colony size. This is a PhD study at McGill university and a high impact paper is now close to submission. |
Collaborator Contribution | The LOMVIA project have accessed the complete Atlantic dataset to develop models of habitat use in relation to availability, which will enable us to evaluate interactions of climate and competition on a the abundance and distribution of congeneric temperate and Arctic seabird species at a spatial scale greater than Iceland. |
Impact | A paper describing the foraging range-population size relationships is in an advanced state but not yet submitted. |
Start Year | 2020 |
Description | Attendance of COLDFISH annual meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Team members participated in the COLDFISH annual meeting, to discuss use of stable isotopes for examining foodwebs of marine predators, including fish and seabirds. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Changing Arctic Ocean final programme meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk and discussion during the final meeting of the Changing Arctic Ocean Programme online meeting. Talk title: "Project LOMVIA: Linking Oceanography and Multi-specific, spatially-Variable Interactions of seabirds and their prey in the Arctic". Presented the results and discussed context with findings from other projects in the programme and explored future research/collaborations. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/ |
Description | Fieldwork blogs on the British Antarctic Survey website |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Each of the UK fieldwork teams wrote at least one blog post for the British Antarctic Survey website: - https://www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/not-so-grim-studying-guillemots-on-grimsey-island-with-project-lomvia/ - https://www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/tracking-seabird-species-in-iceland/ - https://www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/tracking-guillermots-with-project-lomvia/ |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/ |
Description | Interview for Icelandic TV programme |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | A filming crew from the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service also too some footage of the fieldwork carried out by one of our fieldwork teams in Iceland. This featured in an episode of the Landinn TV programme on the RÚV channel on November, 24th 2019. This weekly programme is one of the most watched TV programmes in Iceland and can be watched at: https://www.ruv.is/sjonvarp/spila/landinn/27858?ep=89lipo |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.ruv.is/sjonvarp/spila/landinn/27858?ep=89lipo |
Description | Programme Science to Policy meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Changing Arctic Ocean Science to Policy meeting. Royal Society, London. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Talk at "Arctic Marine Research and Innovation Opportunities for Future Collaboration" |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | The project PDRA presented the findings of LOMVIA to an international group of scientists and policy makers concerned with developing future collaborative research into marine ecology between the UK and Iceland. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.onlineevent.is/ukicelandarcticresearch#About |
Description | Talk at Biologging Symposium 7 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk at the Biologging Symposium, attended by biologists and engineers interested in using tracking devices to understand animal behaviour and movement. Talk entitled: "Effects of competitive pressure and habitat heterogeneity on niche partitioning between Arctic and boreal congeners." |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.bls7hawaii.com/ |
Description | Talk at CAFF CBIRD annual meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A talk on the project findings was presented at the March 2020 meeting of the CAFF CBIRD group in Iceland. The work of this group influences decision making by the Arctic Council |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Talk at Changing Arctic Ocean Annual Science Meeting, Birmingham, UK |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk presented at 2019 Annual Science meeting for Changing Arctic Ocean Programme |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/science-outputs/events/annual-science-meeting-2019/ |
Description | Talk at Changing Arctic Ocean Annual Science Meeting, Potsdam, Germany |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | We presented the findings of LOMVIA at the CAO AGM, alongside talks from all the other projects in the CAO programme |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.changing-arctic-ocean.ac.uk/science-outputs/events/annual-science-meeting-2020/ |
Description | Talk at World Seabird Conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Talk at the World Seabird Conference 3, online. Attended by over 1000 professionals and students interested in all aspects of seabird biology. Title: : "Using multi-colony tracking to understand the foraging ecology of two sympatrically breeding auks around Iceland" |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.seabirds.net/events/wsc3 |
Description | Talk to Joint Nature Conservation Committee |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Online talk to JNCC entitled : "Interspecific segregation in guillemots" which raised questions about importance of competition and its interactions with climate change in influencing conservation of species. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Talk to school pupils during visit to institution |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Talk to 14-15 year old school pupils about seabird spatial ecology. Raised interest in environmental issues and careers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Theatre show at a school |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Norman Ratcliffe (PI) assisted the Mimika theatre company to get the Changing Arctic Ocean production "Arctic" shown at a local Cambridgeshire Primary School. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Work placement student |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | A work placement student was hosted at the British Antarctic Survey for a week. She worked on the LOMVIA project and learned about the wider work the institution does in the Antarctic. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |