Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 07/20/2007 - 19:54
Forums
Greenland Seabird Ecology

Hi Mary, I spent some time last year trying to acquaint my students with ocean currents, melting ice, water temperatures,and the effect of upwhelling (sp) on the food sources brought to the surface for sea birds and other marine critters.  We followed the Pachederme project off South America and that really captured their interest...penquins you know. 

I personally love Puffins and got my students really interested in them.  My question is, what, if anything, are you finding about the food sources available for the Auklets as the effects of global warming are felt on sea water temperatures?  Is this changing the types, amounts, seasonal availability of their traditional food sources?  Are they needing to adjust their eating areas?  Is there any effect yet at all?

I'm hoping posts to this website and your journal will be available on into the fall months so I can share them with my students.  They are great tools to promote reading from live sources and the students really enjoyed feeling a part of Polar Husky and the Baffin Island Project.  Keep up the good work and enjoy every moment of your experience.

Barney Peterson, EW alum

Wed, 07/25/2007 - 17:07

Mary Anne Pell…

Hi Barney, Thanks for the contact. One of the major aspects of this collaborative research between the teams at two sites in Spitsbergen and this colony site in East Greenland is to find out whether there will be any effect of shifting currents and subsequently the altered food supply on these populations. Little Auks feed almost exclusively on planktonic crustacean, a majority of which are calanoid copepods. Different calanus copepods are associated with different water temperature currents. These East Greenland birds are foraging in the East Greenland current , primarily on large, high caloric species of Calanus hyperboreus and C. glacialis. These are associated with the cold Arctic current. Different calanus species mature to different sizes and caloric value. The Little auks that forage from warmer Atlantic water near one of the Spitsbergen sites are collecting less energy-rich C. finmarchicus. These populations , feeding in the warmer current, would need to collect a much larger number of prey individuals to meet the needs of their chicks’ growth. Parents are captured, gular pouch contents extracted, and processed later for species identification and quantity. So, as the North Atlantic current system changes and predicted changes in water temperature occur, there could be a drastic effect on Little auk communities in some areas, such as this colony.
Seabirds generally return to past colony sites due to the availability of sufficient food close by. With an altered food supply, the dynamics of this colony site may change. It is unknown what flexibility Little auks have to changing conditions. Research on other seabirds indicates some species do have flexibility , in terms of moving breeding grounds and in terms of increasing foraging effort Others do not. There was, historically, an Icelandic population of Little Auks. They are now extinct, with some speculation that it may have been affected by warmer waters. Hunting may also have been a factor.
A big focus of this research is to also calculate the energy needs of parents to find out what reserves exist. Do they have the reserves to possibly be able to double, or triple their flights in the breeding season to provide for their own needs and that of a healthy chick? Data is being collected in a number of ways to try to answer this. In upcoming journal entries I will outline several of the studies being conducted.
One of my plans, to develop back at school is to create a simulation activity/game along the lines of the Project WILD Salmon migration game. Little auks would be a majority of students, but will be divided into two populations. One will feed on heavier prey, while the other feeds on lighter prey- using golf balls, ping pong balls or other. After each forage trip the prey numbers must be weighed, and a minimum weight must be gathered before resting. At the same time, glaucous gulls and gyrfalcons will circle to hunt the birds. I will keep working on the idea, but you may be able to ‘see’ the conceptual idea.
I am also posting as the next journal article some of the data obtained here with the TDR loggers. Also included is a chart that shows the currents and their pathways near the study sites. Have a good summer; I am sure you are on another adventure.
Mary Anne