Extreme mortality and reproductive failure of common murres resulting from the northeast Pacific marine heatwave of 2014-2016.

ABSTRACT: About 62,000 dead or dying common murres (Uria aalge), the trophically dominant fish-eating seabird of the North Pacific, washed ashore between summer 2015 and spring 2016 on beaches from California to Alaska. Most birds were severely emaciated and, so far, no evidence for anything other than starvation was found to explain this mass mortality. Three-quarters of murres were found in the Gulf of Alaska and the remainder along the West Coast. Studies show that only a fraction of birds that die at sea typically wash ashore, and we estimate that total mortality approached 1 million birds. About two-thirds of murres killed were adults, a substantial blow to breeding populations. Additionally, 22 complete reproductive failures were observed at multiple colonies region-wide during (2015) and afte

SUBMITTER: Piatt JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6961838 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature