A bird's-eye view on turbulence: seabird foraging associations with evolving surface flow features

Author:

Lieber Lilian1ORCID,Langrock Roland2ORCID,Nimmo-Smith W. Alex M.3ORCID

Affiliation:

1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Marine Laboratory, 12–13 The Strand, Portaferry BT22 1PF, Northern Ireland, UK

2. Department of Business Administration and Economics, Bielefeld University, Postfach 10 01 31, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

3. School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK

Abstract

Understanding physical mechanisms underlying seabird foraging is fundamental to predict responses to coastal change. For instance, turbulence in the water arising from natural or anthropogenic structures can affect foraging opportunities in tidal seas. Yet, identifying ecologically important localized turbulence features (e.g. upwellings approximately 10–100 m) is limited by observational scale, and this knowledge gap is magnified in volatile predators. Here, using a drone-based approach, we present the tracking of surface-foraging terns (143 trajectories belonging to three tern species) and dynamic turbulent surface flow features in synchrony. We thereby provide the earliest evidence that localized turbulence features can present physical foraging cues. Incorporating evolving vorticity and upwelling features within a hidden Markov model, we show that terns were more likely to actively forage as the strength of the underlying vorticity feature increased, while conspicuous upwellings ahead of the flight path presented a strong physical cue to stay in transit behaviour. This clearly encapsulates the importance of prevalent turbulence features as localized foraging cues. Our quantitative approach therefore offers the opportunity to unlock knowledge gaps in seabird sensory and foraging ecology on hitherto unobtainable scales. Finally, it lays the foundation to predict responses to coastal change to inform sustainable ocean development.

Funder

European Union's INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB).

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

Cited by 17 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3