Airflow modelling predicts seabird breeding habitat across islands.

ABSTRACT: Wind is fundamentally related to shelter and flight performance: two factors that are critical for birds at their nest sites. Despite this, airflows have never been fully integrated into models of breeding habitat selection, even for well-studied seabirds. Here, we use computational fluid dynamics to provide the first assessment of whether flow characteristics (including wind speed and turbulence) predict the distribution of seabird colonies, taking common guillemots Uria aalge breeding on Skomer Island as our study system. This demonstrates that occupancy is driven by the need to shelter from both wind and rain/wave action, rather than airflow characteristics alone. Models of airflows and cliff orientation both performed well in predicting high-quality habitat in our study site, id

SUBMITTER: Lempidakis E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7612159 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature