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The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site
The European population of Greater Scaup Aythya marila has experienced an alarming, ~60% decline in numbers over the last two decades. The brackish lagoons of the Odra River Estuary (ORE) in the south-western Baltic Sea, represent an important area for the species during the non-breeding season in E...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4692530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26709707 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145496 |
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author | Marchowski, Dominik Neubauer, Grzegorz Ławicki, Łukasz Woźniczka, Adam Wysocki, Dariusz Guentzel, Sebastian Jarzemski, Maciej |
author_facet | Marchowski, Dominik Neubauer, Grzegorz Ławicki, Łukasz Woźniczka, Adam Wysocki, Dariusz Guentzel, Sebastian Jarzemski, Maciej |
author_sort | Marchowski, Dominik |
collection | PubMed |
description | The European population of Greater Scaup Aythya marila has experienced an alarming, ~60% decline in numbers over the last two decades. The brackish lagoons of the Odra River Estuary (ORE) in the south-western Baltic Sea, represent an important area for the species during the non-breeding season in Europe. The lagoons regularly support over 20 000 Scaup, with peaks exceeding 100 000 (38%–70% of the population wintering in NW Europe and the highest number recorded in April 2011–105 700). In the ORE, Scaup feed almost exclusively on the non-native Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha. This mussel was present in the ORE already in the 19(th) century and continues to be superabundant. Using the results of 22 Scaup censuses (November to April 2002/2003 to 2013/2014) from the whole ORE (523 km(2) of water), we show that Scaup flocks follow areas with the greatest area of occurrence and biomass of the Zebra Mussel, while areas with low mussel densities are ignored. The numbers of Scaup in the ORE are primarily related to the area of Zebra Mussel occurrence on the lagoon’s bottom (km(2)) in a non-linear fashion. Zebra Mussels were absolutely prevalent (97% of biomass) in the digestive tracts of birds unintentionally by-caught in fishing nets (n = 32). We estimate that Scaup alone consume an average of 5 400 tons of Zebra Mussels annually, which represents 5.6% of the total resources of the mussel in the ORE. Our results provide a clear picture of the strong dependence of the declining, migratory duck species on the non-native mussel, its primary food in the ORE. Our findings are particularly important as they can form the basis for the conservation action plan aimed at saving the north-western European populations of Scaup. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4692530 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46925302016-01-12 The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site Marchowski, Dominik Neubauer, Grzegorz Ławicki, Łukasz Woźniczka, Adam Wysocki, Dariusz Guentzel, Sebastian Jarzemski, Maciej PLoS One Research Article The European population of Greater Scaup Aythya marila has experienced an alarming, ~60% decline in numbers over the last two decades. The brackish lagoons of the Odra River Estuary (ORE) in the south-western Baltic Sea, represent an important area for the species during the non-breeding season in Europe. The lagoons regularly support over 20 000 Scaup, with peaks exceeding 100 000 (38%–70% of the population wintering in NW Europe and the highest number recorded in April 2011–105 700). In the ORE, Scaup feed almost exclusively on the non-native Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha. This mussel was present in the ORE already in the 19(th) century and continues to be superabundant. Using the results of 22 Scaup censuses (November to April 2002/2003 to 2013/2014) from the whole ORE (523 km(2) of water), we show that Scaup flocks follow areas with the greatest area of occurrence and biomass of the Zebra Mussel, while areas with low mussel densities are ignored. The numbers of Scaup in the ORE are primarily related to the area of Zebra Mussel occurrence on the lagoon’s bottom (km(2)) in a non-linear fashion. Zebra Mussels were absolutely prevalent (97% of biomass) in the digestive tracts of birds unintentionally by-caught in fishing nets (n = 32). We estimate that Scaup alone consume an average of 5 400 tons of Zebra Mussels annually, which represents 5.6% of the total resources of the mussel in the ORE. Our results provide a clear picture of the strong dependence of the declining, migratory duck species on the non-native mussel, its primary food in the ORE. Our findings are particularly important as they can form the basis for the conservation action plan aimed at saving the north-western European populations of Scaup. Public Library of Science 2015-12-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4692530/ /pubmed/26709707 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145496 Text en © 2015 Marchowski et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Marchowski, Dominik Neubauer, Grzegorz Ławicki, Łukasz Woźniczka, Adam Wysocki, Dariusz Guentzel, Sebastian Jarzemski, Maciej The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title | The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title_full | The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title_fullStr | The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title_full_unstemmed | The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title_short | The Importance of Non-Native Prey, the Zebra Mussel Dreissena polymorpha, for the Declining Greater Scaup Aythya marila: A Case Study at a Key European Staging and Wintering Site |
title_sort | importance of non-native prey, the zebra mussel dreissena polymorpha, for the declining greater scaup aythya marila: a case study at a key european staging and wintering site |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4692530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26709707 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145496 |
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