Fueling of a marine-terrestrial ecosystem by a major seabird colony.

ABSTRACT: Seabirds redistribute nutrients between different ecosystem compartments and over vast geographical areas. This nutrient transfer may impact both local ecosystems on seabird breeding islands and regional biogeochemical cycling, but these processes are seldom considered in local conservation plans or biogeochemical models. The island of Stora Karlsö in the Baltic Sea hosts the largest concentration of piscivorous seabirds in the region, and also hosts a large colony of insectivorous House martins Delichon urbicum adjacent to the breeding seabirds. We show that a previously reported unusually high insectivore abundance was explained by large amounts of chironomids-highly enriched in δ¹⁵N-that feed on seabird residues as larvae along rocky shores to eventually emerge as flying adul

SUBMITTER: Hentati-Sundberg J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7508978 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature