IEDA
Project Information
Applying High-resolution GPS Tracking to Characterize Sensory Foraging Strategies of the Black-browed Albatross, a Top Predator of the Southern Ocean Ecosystem
Start Date:
2012-08-15
End Date:
2015-07-31
Description/Abstract
With 70% of the Earth's surface being covered by oceans, a longstanding question of interest to the ecology of migratory seabirds is how they locate their prey across such vast distances. The project seeks to investigate the sensory strategies used in the foraging behavior of procellariiform seabirds, such as petrels, albatrosses and shearwaters. These birds routinely travel over thousands of kilometers of open ocean, apparently using their pronounced olfactory abilities (known to be up to a million times more sensitive than other birds) to identify productive marine areas or locate prey. High resolution tracking, such as provided by miniaturized GPS data loggers (+/- 5m; 10 second sampling), are needed to gain insight into some of the questions as to the sensory mechanisms birds use to locate their prey. Combining these tracking and positioning devices along with stomach temperature recorders capable of indicating prey ingestion, will provide a wealth of new behavioral information. Species specific foraging based on prey specific odors (e.g. krill vs fisheries vs. squid), and mixed strategies using olfaction and visual cues appear to be different for these different marine predators.

Albatrosses are increasingly an endangered species globally, and additional information as to their foraging strategies might lead to better conservation measures such as the avoidance of by-catch by long-line fisheries.
Intimate details of each species foraging activity patterns during the day and night and insight into the conservation of these top predators in pelagic Southern Ocean ecosystems are a few of the research directions these novel fine scale resolution approaches are yielding.
Personnel
Person Role
Nevitt, Gabrielle Investigator
Funding
Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems Award # 1142084
AMD - DIF Record(s)
Data Management Plan
None in the Database
Product Level:
0 (raw data)
Datasets
Repository Title (link) Format(s) Status
USAP-DC Satellite tracks of Black-browed Albatross in the Southern Indian Ocean None exist
Publications
  1. Savoca, M. S., Wohlfeil, M. E., Ebeler, S. E., & Nevitt, G. A. (2016). Marine plastic debris emits a keystone infochemical for olfactory foraging seabirds. Science Advances, 2(11), e1600395. (doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600395)
  2. Mitkus, M., Nevitt, G. A., Danielsen, J., & Kelber, A. (2016). Vision on the high seas: spatial resolution and optical sensitivity in two procellariiform seabirds with different foraging strategies. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 219(21), 3329–3338. (doi:10.1242/jeb.140905)
Keywords
Platforms and Instruments

This project has been viewed 30 times since May 2019 (based on unique date-IP combinations)