Northern Gannet foraging trip length increases with colony size and decreases with latitude
| Title: | Northern Gannet foraging trip length increases with colony size and decreases with latitude |
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| Authors: | Bethany L. Clark, Freydís Vigfúsdóttir, Sarah Wanless, Keith C. Hamer, Thomas W. Bodey, Stuart Bearhop, Ashley Bennison, Jez Blackburn, Sam L. Cox, Kyle J. N. d’Entremont, Stefan Garthe, David Grémillet, Mark Jessopp, Jude Lane, Amélie Lescroël, William A. Montevecchi, David J. Pascall, Pascal Provost, Ewan D. Wakefield, Victoria Warwick‐Evans, Saskia Wischnewski, Lucy J. Wright, Stephen C. Votier |
| Source: | Royal Society Open Science, Vol 11, Iss 9 (2024) |
| Publisher Information: | The Royal Society, 2024. |
| Publication Year: | 2024 |
| Collection: | LCC:Science |
| Subject Terms: | central place foraging, coloniality, species distributions, bio-logging, predator–prey, seabird, Science |
| More Details: | Density-dependent competition for food influences the foraging behaviour and demography of colonial animals, but how this influence varies across a species’ latitudinal range is poorly understood. Here we used satellite tracking from 21 Northern Gannet Morus bassanus colonies (39% of colonies worldwide, supporting 73% of the global population) during chick-rearing to test how foraging trip characteristics (distance and duration) covary with colony size (138–60 953 breeding pairs) and latitude across 89% of their latitudinal range (46.81–71.23° N). Tracking data for 1118 individuals showed that foraging trip duration and maximum distance both increased with square-root colony size. Foraging effort also varied between years for the same colony, consistent with a link to environmental variability. Trip duration and maximum distance also decreased with latitude, after controlling for colony size. Our results are consistent with density-dependent reduction in prey availability influencing colony size and reveal reduced competition at the poleward range margin. This provides a mechanism for rapid population growth at northern colonies and, therefore, a poleward shift in response to environmental change. Further work is required to understand when and how colonial animals deplete nearby prey, along with the positive and negative effects of social foraging behaviour. |
| Document Type: | article |
| File Description: | electronic resource |
| Language: | English |
| ISSN: | 2054-5703 14909227 |
| Relation: | https://doaj.org/toc/2054-5703 |
| DOI: | 10.1098/rsos.240708 |
| Access URL: | https://doaj.org/article/9ee0f74390f24573b262b0c14909227f |
| Accession Number: | edsdoj.9ee0f74390f24573b262b0c14909227f |
| Database: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
| ISSN: | 20545703 14909227 |
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| DOI: | 10.1098/rsos.240708 |
| Published in: | Royal Society Open Science |
| Language: | English |