Behavioural flexibility in an Arctic seabird using two distinct marine habitats to survive the energetic constraints of winter.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Homeothermic marine animals in Polar Regions face an energetic bottleneck in winter. The challenges of short days and cold temperatures are exacerbated for flying seabirds with small body size and limited fat stores. We use biologging approaches to examine how habitat, weather, and moon illumination influence behaviour and energetics of a marine bird species, thick-billed murres (Uria lomvia).

Methods

We used temperature-depth-light recorders to examine strategies murres use to survive winter in the Northwest Atlantic, where contrasting currents create two distinct marine habitats: cold (-0.1 ± 1.2 °C), shallower water along the Labrador Shelf and warmer (3.1 ± 0.3 °C), deep water in the Labrador Basin.

Results

In the cold shelf water, murres used a high-en

SUBMITTER: Patterson A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9635182 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature