EVOLBIRD

Demographic strategies under climate variation: a study on Arctic and Antarctic seabirds

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Predicting the impact of future climate changes on populations and biodiversity is of key importance in the connection with the current global warming. It is crucial to understand how organisms are able to cope with climatic variations, especially in polar environments where the effect of climate change is the strongest. Climate changes may have important ecological consequences on the population dynamics on the long-lived organisms. Because they are typically the upper trophic-level predators of a food chain, they might amplify the effects of climatic forcing on lower trophic-levels. These sensitive indicators of food-web changes are also suitable to study how effects of climate change may be mitigated by behavioural plasticity and evolutionary changes. In addition to the major role of their oceanic circulations in global climate, polar areas are of a particular interest because they hold some of the major animal biomasses of our planet. Resource abundance and availability in polar oceans might vary strongly between years, with effects on animal foraging efficiency, and consequently on demographic traits and the population growth rate. During this Marie Curie project, I will study the links between long-term population time-series on top-predators (seabirds) and environmental data (local and global indices). The analyses will be based on two different polar marine ecosystems: Southern Ocean and Barents Sea. Working with the state-of-the-art statistical tools used at the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, centre of excellence at the University of Oslo, will allow me to investigate how seabirds adapt their demographic strategies depending on climate changes and their experience, and to predict how their populations will adapt to climate and oceanographic changes. Understanding the processes underlying population changes is essential for predicting the dynamics of the polar ecosystems, and hence to develop proper conservation measures of these systems.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Climate change may hold negative consequences for animal populations and biodiversity, particularly for long-lived species. Recent research has highlighted the effects of climate change on polar birds such as penguins and kittiwakes.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Long-lived animals are often high up in the food chain.

As such, they can majorly impact ecosystems by amplifying the effects of climate change on other organisms.

Understanding the interaction between climate change and population genetics will help scientists to better predict and mitigate future climate change impacts.The EU-funded 'Demographic strategies under climate variation: A study on Arctic and Antarctic seabirds' (EVOLBIRD) project aimed to study the effects of climate change on sea-bird demographics.EVOLBIRD researchers found that in king penguins, adult survival is the major predictor of population growth, although early-age survival also played an important role.

The project also found that under adverse environmental conditions, these birds start to breed at a younger age.Additionally, researchers determined that flipper bands (previously used to identify and track king penguins) impair the survival and reproduction of these birds, casting doubt onto decades of population research.

Researchers used rgovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions to model how the king penguin populations would change over time.

Even the most conservative predictions showed that the colony studied would be near extinction in less than 100 years.Similar methods are now being applied to kittiwake populations in the Barents Sea.

This project has contributed to the survival and protection of king penguins, and has improved our understanding of the effects of climate change on arctic birds.