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Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia
The foraging niches of seabirds are driven by a variety of factors, including competition for prey that promotes divergence in trophic niches. Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, is a key region for seabirds, with little penguins Eudyptula minor, short-tailed shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris, fair...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7071825/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32201643 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8700 |
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author | Fromant, Aymeric Schumann, Nicole Dann, Peter Cherel, Yves Arnould, John P.Y. |
author_facet | Fromant, Aymeric Schumann, Nicole Dann, Peter Cherel, Yves Arnould, John P.Y. |
author_sort | Fromant, Aymeric |
collection | PubMed |
description | The foraging niches of seabirds are driven by a variety of factors, including competition for prey that promotes divergence in trophic niches. Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, is a key region for seabirds, with little penguins Eudyptula minor, short-tailed shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris, fairy prions Pachyptila turtur and common diving-petrels Pelecanoides urinatrix being particularly abundant in the region. The trophic niches of these species were investigated using isotopic values in whole blood and by identifying prey remains in stomach contents. The four species occupied different isotopic niches that varied among years, seasons and regions. Little penguins consumed mainly fish whereas the three procellariforms primarily consumed coastal krill Nyctiphanes australis. The dietary similarities between the procellariforms suggest that food resources are segregated in other ways, with interspecific differences in isotope niches possibly reflecting differential consumption of key prey, divergent foraging locations and depth, and differences in breeding phenology. Because oceanographic changes predicted to occur due to climate change may result in reduced coastal krill availability, adversely affecting these seabird predators, further information on foraging zones and feeding behaviour of small procellariform species is needed to elucidate more fully the segregation of foraging niches, the capacity of seabirds to adapt to climate change and the potential for interspecific competition in the region. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7071825 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70718252020-03-20 Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia Fromant, Aymeric Schumann, Nicole Dann, Peter Cherel, Yves Arnould, John P.Y. PeerJ Ecology The foraging niches of seabirds are driven by a variety of factors, including competition for prey that promotes divergence in trophic niches. Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, is a key region for seabirds, with little penguins Eudyptula minor, short-tailed shearwaters Ardenna tenuirostris, fairy prions Pachyptila turtur and common diving-petrels Pelecanoides urinatrix being particularly abundant in the region. The trophic niches of these species were investigated using isotopic values in whole blood and by identifying prey remains in stomach contents. The four species occupied different isotopic niches that varied among years, seasons and regions. Little penguins consumed mainly fish whereas the three procellariforms primarily consumed coastal krill Nyctiphanes australis. The dietary similarities between the procellariforms suggest that food resources are segregated in other ways, with interspecific differences in isotope niches possibly reflecting differential consumption of key prey, divergent foraging locations and depth, and differences in breeding phenology. Because oceanographic changes predicted to occur due to climate change may result in reduced coastal krill availability, adversely affecting these seabird predators, further information on foraging zones and feeding behaviour of small procellariform species is needed to elucidate more fully the segregation of foraging niches, the capacity of seabirds to adapt to climate change and the potential for interspecific competition in the region. PeerJ Inc. 2020-03-11 /pmc/articles/PMC7071825/ /pubmed/32201643 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8700 Text en ©2020 Fromant et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Ecology Fromant, Aymeric Schumann, Nicole Dann, Peter Cherel, Yves Arnould, John P.Y. Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title | Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title_full | Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title_fullStr | Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title_full_unstemmed | Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title_short | Trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia |
title_sort | trophic niches of a seabird assemblage in bass strait, south-eastern australia |
topic | Ecology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7071825/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32201643 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8700 |
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