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Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean

Studying the movements of oceanic migrants has been elusive until the advent of several tracking devices, such as the light-level geolocators. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) offers a complementary approach to infer areas used year-round, but its suitability in oceanic environments remains almost unex...

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Autores principales: Cruz-Flores, Marta, Militão, Teresa, Ramos, Raül, González-Solís, Jacob
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5997309/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29894489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198667
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author Cruz-Flores, Marta
Militão, Teresa
Ramos, Raül
González-Solís, Jacob
author_facet Cruz-Flores, Marta
Militão, Teresa
Ramos, Raül
González-Solís, Jacob
author_sort Cruz-Flores, Marta
collection PubMed
description Studying the movements of oceanic migrants has been elusive until the advent of several tracking devices, such as the light-level geolocators. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) offers a complementary approach to infer areas used year-round, but its suitability in oceanic environments remains almost unexplored. To evaluate SIA as a tool for inferring movements of oceanic migrants, we sampled an oceanic seabird, the Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in four breeding colonies spread along its Atlantic distribution. We first studied the species moulting pattern from 29 corpses collected in the colonies. Secondly, based on this moult knowledge, we selected three feathers from tracked birds to infer their breeding and non-breeding grounds using SIA: the 1(st) primary (P1), the 8(th) secondary (S8) and the 6(th) rectrix (R6) feathers. Birds migrated to two main non-breeding areas, the Central or the South Atlantic Ocean. P1 showed similar isotopic values among petrels from different breeding colonies, suggesting this feather is replaced early in the non-breeding period in a common area used by most birds, the Central Atlantic. S8 and R6 feathers correctly assigned 92% and 81%, respectively, of the birds to their non-breeding areas, suggesting they were replaced late in season, when birds were settled in their main non-breeding grounds. Our results showed that the isotopic baseline levels of the Central and South Atlantic are propagated through the food web until reaching top predators, suggesting these ratios can be used to infer the movement of long-distance migrants among oceanic water masses.
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spelling pubmed-59973092018-06-21 Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean Cruz-Flores, Marta Militão, Teresa Ramos, Raül González-Solís, Jacob PLoS One Research Article Studying the movements of oceanic migrants has been elusive until the advent of several tracking devices, such as the light-level geolocators. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) offers a complementary approach to infer areas used year-round, but its suitability in oceanic environments remains almost unexplored. To evaluate SIA as a tool for inferring movements of oceanic migrants, we sampled an oceanic seabird, the Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in four breeding colonies spread along its Atlantic distribution. We first studied the species moulting pattern from 29 corpses collected in the colonies. Secondly, based on this moult knowledge, we selected three feathers from tracked birds to infer their breeding and non-breeding grounds using SIA: the 1(st) primary (P1), the 8(th) secondary (S8) and the 6(th) rectrix (R6) feathers. Birds migrated to two main non-breeding areas, the Central or the South Atlantic Ocean. P1 showed similar isotopic values among petrels from different breeding colonies, suggesting this feather is replaced early in the non-breeding period in a common area used by most birds, the Central Atlantic. S8 and R6 feathers correctly assigned 92% and 81%, respectively, of the birds to their non-breeding areas, suggesting they were replaced late in season, when birds were settled in their main non-breeding grounds. Our results showed that the isotopic baseline levels of the Central and South Atlantic are propagated through the food web until reaching top predators, suggesting these ratios can be used to infer the movement of long-distance migrants among oceanic water masses. Public Library of Science 2018-06-12 /pmc/articles/PMC5997309/ /pubmed/29894489 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198667 Text en © 2018 Cruz-Flores 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cruz-Flores, Marta
Militão, Teresa
Ramos, Raül
González-Solís, Jacob
Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title_full Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title_fullStr Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title_full_unstemmed Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title_short Using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: The case of Bulwer’s petrel, Bulweria bulwerii, in the Atlantic Ocean
title_sort using marine isoscapes to infer movements of oceanic migrants: the case of bulwer’s petrel, bulweria bulwerii, in the atlantic ocean
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5997309/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29894489
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198667
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