Fine-Scale Temporal and Spatial Patterns of a High Arctic Marine Bird Community
Douglas Causey, Jeffrey M. Welker, Kurt K. Burnham, Veronica M. Padula, and Naomi A. Bargmann
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Description
Abstract: Understanding the complex dynamics of environmental change in northern latitudes is particularly critical for arctic avian communities, which are integral components that maintain biological connections between the mid and northern latitudes. We report on studies done in 2010–2012 in northwest Greenland as part of a larger effort focused on understanding the population dynamics of high arctic marine bird communities. We use several data sources and analysis techniques, including diet data, stable isotopes, and Bayesian inference, to identify the potential relationships between ecological response of coastal marine birds and rapid environmental change such as increased freshwater runoff from glacier melt, inshore oceanographic change, and cascading trophic perturbations. Our preliminary results indicate that community-wide spatial and temporal dynamics of this high arctic marine bird community are far greater during our study period than was evident in past decades. We also find that the magnitude of change is greater here in the high Arctic (e.g., 78°N) compared to low arctic coastal marine ecosystems (e.g., western Aleutian Islands, 53°N). In particular, we show that the ecological patterns observed within such widespread arctic species as Dovekie and Black-legged Kittiwake indicate diets are strongly perturbed from a decade earlier. Moreover, we find that the variance in environmental and ecological parameters is increasing over relatively small temporal and spatial scales. We hypothesize that these fine-scale changes are related to oceanographic and trophic-level responses to increased freshwater injection into coastal waters, in addition to larger-scale perturbations possibly related to a cascade of climate-related factors
Item details
- Item number: AK-SG-13-03j
- Year: 2013
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.4027/ramecc.2013.10
