Foraging Ecology of Seabird Species

Foraging ecology in seabirds encompasses the strategies and behaviours by which these central-place foragers locate and exploit prey across vast marine environments. Many seabirds exhibit remarkable individual specialisations, with adults often developing consistent routes and feeding sites after exploratory movements in early life. Foraging decisions are influenced by oceanographic features such as fronts, eddies and upwellings that aggregate prey, while windscapes and sea-surface temperature gradients shape flight efficiency and prey availability. Technological advances in GPS loggers, geolocators and biologging devices have revealed patterns of area-restricted search, prey switching under variable conditions and spatio-temporal niche partitioning among sympatric species. Climate-driven shifts in prey distributions have prompted adjustments in migratory routes and foraging ranges, with some populations showing plasticity in destination and timing. Habitat-use models incorporating density-dependence and competition now allow prediction of at-sea distributions from tracking data. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for conservation, as seabirds respond rapidly to changing oceanic conditions, fisheries interactions and extreme weather events, making them sentinels of marine ecosystem health and targets for adaptive management.

Research from Nature Portfolio

A study of a major tropical cyclone’s impact on a remote breeding colony demonstrated catastrophic mortality of over 80% in several seabird species, revealing that increasingly frequent and intense storms may exceed population resilience and threaten island endemics. Techniques combining aerial surveys with demographic modelling emphasised the urgency of integrating extreme weather impacts into conservation planning. Another investigation into wandering albatross populations uncovered striking variation in non-breeding migrations between two archipelagos: one population circumnavigates Antarctica with extensive detours to exploit westerly winds, while the other remains largely sedentary. These divergent strategies were linked to sex-specific breeding schedules and annual versus biennial reproduction, illustrating how migratory behaviour is intertwined with life-history traits and susceptibility to environmental change.

Foraging Ecology of Seabird Species publication trend

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

Technical terms

Central-place foraging: foraging strategy in which individuals depart from and return to a fixed site, typically a breeding colony.

Individual foraging site fidelity: tendency of an individual to revisit specific feeding locations over successive trips.

Geolocator tracking: use of miniature light-based loggers to estimate geographic positions over extended periods.

Area-restricted search: behavioural mode characterised by reduced travel speed and increased turning rate in regions of high prey density.

References

1. Climate change drives migratory range shift via individual plasticity in shearwaters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2024).
2. Cyclone Ilsa in April 2023 led to significant seabird mortality on Bedout Island. Communications Earth & Environment (2024).
3. Effects of age and reproductive status on individual foraging site fidelity in a long-lived marine predator. Proceedings of the Royal Society B (2017).
4. Breeding density, fine‐scale tracking, and large‐scale modeling reveal the regional distribution of four seabird species. Ecological Applications (2017).
5. Windscapes shape seabird instantaneous energy costs but adult behavior buffers impact on offspring. Movement Ecology (2014).
6. Extreme variation in migration strategies between and within wandering albatross populations during their sabbatical year and their fitness consequences. Scientific Reports (2015).
7. Ecological Segregation in Space, Time and Trophic Niche of Sympatric Planktivorous Petrels. PLOS ONE (2013).