Foraging distribution of breeding northern fulmars is predicted by commercial fisheries

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dc.contributor.authorDarby, J. H.en
dc.contributor.authorDe Grissac, S.en
dc.contributor.authorArneill, G. E.en
dc.contributor.authorPirotta, E.en
dc.contributor.authorWaggitt, J. J.en
dc.contributor.authorBörger, L.en
dc.contributor.authorShepard, E.en
dc.contributor.authorCabot, Daviden
dc.contributor.authorOwen, E.en
dc.contributor.authorBolton, M.en
dc.contributor.authorEdwards, E. W. J.en
dc.contributor.authorThompson, P. M.en
dc.contributor.authorQuinn, J. L.en
dc.contributor.authorJessopp, M.en
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Commissionen
dc.contributor.funderFair Isle Bird Observatory Trusten
dc.contributor.funderJoint Nature Conservation Committeeen
dc.contributor.funderNational Trust for Scotlanden
dc.contributor.funderTalisman Energy (UK) Ltden
dc.contributor.funderOrkney Islands Councilen
dc.contributor.funderRSPBen
dc.contributor.funderUniversity of Aberdeenen
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Regional Development Funden
dc.contributor.funderIrish Research Councilen
dc.contributor.funderMarine Scotlanden
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-15T09:45:45Z
dc.date.available2025-01-15T09:45:45Z
dc.date.issued2021en
dc.description.abstractHabitat-use and distribution models are essential tools of conservation biology. For wide-ranging species, such models may be challenged by the expanse, remoteness and variability of their habitat, these challenges often being compounded by the species' mobility. In marine environments, direct observations and sampling are usually impractical over broad regions, and instead remotely sensed proxies of prey availability are often used to link species abundance or foraging behaviour to areas that are expected to provide food consistently. One source of food consumed by many marine top predators is fisheries waste, but habitat-use models rarely account for this interaction. We assessed the utility of commercial fishing effort as a covariate in foraging habitat models for northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis, a species known to exploit fisheries waste, during their summer breeding season. First, we investigated the prevalence of fulmar-vessel interactions using concurrently tracked fulmars and fishing vessels. We infer that over half of our study individuals associate with fishing vessels while foraging, mostly with trawl-type vessels. We then used hidden Markov models to explain the spatio-temporal distribution of putative foraging be - haviour as a function of a range of covariates. Persistent commercial fishing effort was a significant predictor of foraging behaviour, and was more important than commonly used environmental covariates retained in the model. This study demonstrates the effect of commercial fisheries on the foraging distribution and behaviour of a marine top predator, and supports the idea that, in some systems, incorporating human activities into distribution studies can improve model fit substantially © 2021 Inter-Research. All rights reserved.en
dc.description.sponsorshipIrish Research Council (Enterprise Partnership Scheme); European Regional Development fund (BlueFish project); University of Aberdeen (studentship); EU Atlantic area INTERREG program via the (Future of the Atlantic Marine Environment (FAME) project) Marine Scotland (Seabird Tracking And Research(STAR) project) en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationDarby, J.H., de Grissac, S., Arneill, G.E., Pirotta, E., Waggitt, J.J., Börger, L., Shepard, E., Cabot, D., Owen, E., Bolton, M. and Edwards, E.W. (2021) 'Foraging distribution of breeding northern fulmars is predicted by commercial fisheries', Marine Ecology Progress Series, 679, pp.181-194. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13887en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.3354/meps13887en
dc.identifier.endpage194en
dc.identifier.journaltitleMarine Ecology Progress Seriesen
dc.identifier.startpage181en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/16820
dc.identifier.volume679
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherInter-Researchen
dc.rights© 2021, Inter-Research. This work is made available under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectAnthropogenic food sourceen
dc.subjectDiscardsen
dc.subjectFisheriesen
dc.subjectForaging behavioren
dc.subjectHabitat useen
dc.subjectMarine conservationen
dc.titleForaging distribution of breeding northern fulmars is predicted by commercial fisheriesen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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