Foraging Ecology and Reproductive Success of Seabirds

Seabirds occupy the interface between marine and terrestrial ecosystems, returning to fixed colonies to breed yet venturing into dynamic oceanic environments to feed. Their central-place foraging during the breeding season demands a balance between energy gained at sea and energy invested in chicks on land. Foraging strategies—trip duration, dive profiles and prey selection—are finely tuned to resource distribution, which is influenced by currents, temperature gradients, frontal zones and patchiness. Successful provisioning underpins clutch size, hatching rates and fledgling survival, linking adult foraging performance directly to reproductive output. Rapid changes in ocean temperature, prey abundance and human pressures such as shipping or fisheries alter prey landscapes, challenging seabirds’ ability to meet chick demands. Advances in biologging, diet analysis and acoustic surveys have revealed adaptive plasticity in foraging tactics, while also highlighting constraints that may limit reproductive resilience under global change. Integrating these insights is critical for designing effective marine protected areas and informing ecosystem-based management that safeguards both foraging habitats and breeding success worldwide.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have elucidated the link between oceanographic change and foraging performance in seabirds. One foundational investigation employed accelerometry to derive a prey capture signature in little penguins, revealing that elevated sea surface temperatures associated with a strengthening boundary current reduced prey capture success and altered spatial use of foraging grounds. An optimal temperature range was identified, outside which both foraging efficiency and parental provisioning declined, with potential knock-on effects on chick growth and survival. Although few studies have appeared in this portfolio over the past two years, ongoing sensor-based work promises to integrate fine-scale prey encounter metrics with reproductive outcomes across diverse seabird taxa.

Foraging Ecology and Reproductive Success of Seabirds publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in foraging ecology and reproductive success of seabirds across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Central-place foraging: A foraging strategy in which animals return to a fixed site (e.g., nest) between feeding trips, constraining prey range.

Foraging efficiency: The ratio of prey captured to the time or energy expended during foraging, reflecting resource acquisition success.

Accelerometry: The use of motion sensors on animals to record fine-scale behaviours such as prey captures and dive dynamics.

Prey encounter index: A metric comparing the number of prey detections along an animal’s actual track to those expected under random movement, indicating search effectiveness.

References

1. High sea surface temperatures driven by a strengthening current reduce foraging success by penguins. Scientific Reports (2016).
2. COVID-related anthropause highlights the impact of marine traffic but not of tourism on breeding little penguins. Biological Conservation (2023).
3. Variability in prey field structure drives inter-annual differences in prey encounter by a marine predator, the little penguin. Royal Society Open Science (2022).
4. The consequences of chaos: Foraging activity of a marine predator remains impacted several days after the end of a storm. PLOS ONE (2021).