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Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea
Mass mortality events are increasing in frequency and magnitude, potentially linked with ongoing climate change. In October 2016 through January 2017, St. Paul Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, experienced a mortality event of alcids (family: Alcidae), with over 350 carcasses recovered. Almost three-quart...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6541255/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31141532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216532 |
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author | Jones, Timothy Divine, Lauren M. Renner, Heather Knowles, Susan Lefebvre, Kathi A. Burgess, Hillary K. Wright, Charlie Parrish, Julia K. |
author_facet | Jones, Timothy Divine, Lauren M. Renner, Heather Knowles, Susan Lefebvre, Kathi A. Burgess, Hillary K. Wright, Charlie Parrish, Julia K. |
author_sort | Jones, Timothy |
collection | PubMed |
description | Mass mortality events are increasing in frequency and magnitude, potentially linked with ongoing climate change. In October 2016 through January 2017, St. Paul Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, experienced a mortality event of alcids (family: Alcidae), with over 350 carcasses recovered. Almost three-quarters of the carcasses were unscavenged, a rate much higher than in baseline surveys (17%), suggesting ongoing deposition and elevated mortality around St Paul over a 2–3 month period. Based on the observation that carcasses were not observed on the neighboring island of St. George, we bounded the at-sea distribution of moribund birds, and estimated all species mortality at 3,150 to 8,800 birds. The event was particularly anomalous given the late fall/winter timing when low numbers of beached birds are typical. In addition, the predominance of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata, 79% of carcass finds) and Crested auklets (Aethia cristatella, 11% of carcass finds) was unusual, as these species are nearly absent from long-term baseline surveys. Collected specimens were severely emaciated, suggesting starvation as the ultimate cause of mortality. The majority (95%, N = 245) of Tufted puffins were adults regrowing flight feathers, indicating a potential contribution of molt stress. Immediately prior to this event, shifts in zooplankton community composition and in forage fish distribution and energy density were documented in the eastern Bering Sea following a period of elevated sea surface temperatures, evidence cumulatively suggestive of a bottom-up shift in seabird prey availability. We posit that shifts in prey composition and/or distribution, combined with the onset of molt, resulted in this mortality event. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6541255 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-65412552019-06-05 Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea Jones, Timothy Divine, Lauren M. Renner, Heather Knowles, Susan Lefebvre, Kathi A. Burgess, Hillary K. Wright, Charlie Parrish, Julia K. PLoS One Research Article Mass mortality events are increasing in frequency and magnitude, potentially linked with ongoing climate change. In October 2016 through January 2017, St. Paul Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, experienced a mortality event of alcids (family: Alcidae), with over 350 carcasses recovered. Almost three-quarters of the carcasses were unscavenged, a rate much higher than in baseline surveys (17%), suggesting ongoing deposition and elevated mortality around St Paul over a 2–3 month period. Based on the observation that carcasses were not observed on the neighboring island of St. George, we bounded the at-sea distribution of moribund birds, and estimated all species mortality at 3,150 to 8,800 birds. The event was particularly anomalous given the late fall/winter timing when low numbers of beached birds are typical. In addition, the predominance of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata, 79% of carcass finds) and Crested auklets (Aethia cristatella, 11% of carcass finds) was unusual, as these species are nearly absent from long-term baseline surveys. Collected specimens were severely emaciated, suggesting starvation as the ultimate cause of mortality. The majority (95%, N = 245) of Tufted puffins were adults regrowing flight feathers, indicating a potential contribution of molt stress. Immediately prior to this event, shifts in zooplankton community composition and in forage fish distribution and energy density were documented in the eastern Bering Sea following a period of elevated sea surface temperatures, evidence cumulatively suggestive of a bottom-up shift in seabird prey availability. We posit that shifts in prey composition and/or distribution, combined with the onset of molt, resulted in this mortality event. Public Library of Science 2019-05-29 /pmc/articles/PMC6541255/ /pubmed/31141532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216532 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Jones, Timothy Divine, Lauren M. Renner, Heather Knowles, Susan Lefebvre, Kathi A. Burgess, Hillary K. Wright, Charlie Parrish, Julia K. Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title | Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title_full | Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title_fullStr | Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title_full_unstemmed | Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title_short | Unusual mortality of Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern Bering Sea |
title_sort | unusual mortality of tufted puffins (fratercula cirrhata) in the eastern bering sea |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6541255/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31141532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216532 |
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