Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T14:20:28.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moult intensity in blue petrels and a key moult site off West Antarctica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

Peter G. Ryan Open the ORCID record for Peter G. Ryan [Opens in a new window] ,
Jasmine R. Lee Open the ORCID record for Jasmine R. Lee [Opens in a new window]  and
Fabrice Le Bouard Open the ORCID record for Fabrice Le Bouard [Opens in a new window]
Peter G. Ryan*
Affiliation:
FitzPatrick Institute of Africa Ornithology, DST-NRF Centre of Excellence, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch7701, South Africa
Jasmine R. Lee
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia
Fabrice Le Bouard
Affiliation:
Centre d'Etude Biologiques de Chize, CNRS, 79360Villiers En Bois, France
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Blue petrels (Halobaena caerulea Gmelin) rapidly moult their flight feathers in Antarctic waters in February–April, immediately following the breeding season, yet the behaviour of moulting birds at sea has not been described. We observed large numbers of moulting blue petrels off West Antarctica from 67–71°S and 78–119°W in mid-February 2017. Most of these birds probably breed at the Diego Ramirez archipelago, southwest of Cape Horn, which is the closest colony to this area. Moulting petrels often sit on the water in dense flocks, just outside the marginal ice zone, at sea temperatures of -0.7 to 0.9°C. Wing moult is intense, with 7–8 inner primaries (62–75% of primary length and 55–69% of primary mass), their corresponding primary coverts and all greater secondary coverts being grown at the same time. Moulting petrels need a reliable food source during this energetically demanding period, so the waters off West Antarctica are probably crucial for the Diego Ramirez population, which makes up more than half of the world's blue petrels.

Keywords

Amundsen SeaBellinghausen SeaDiego Ramirezgreater covert moultHalobaena caeruleaprimary moult
Type
Biological Sciences
Information
Antarctic Science , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
Copyright © Antarctic Science Ltd 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainley, D.G., Jacobs, S.S., Ribix, C.A. & Gafney, I. 1998. Seabird distribution and oceanic features of the Amundsen and southern Bellingshausen seas. Antarctic Science, 10, 111–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ainley, D.G., Russell, J., Jenouvrier, S., Woehler, E., Lyver, P.O., Fraser, W.R. & Kooyman, G.L. 2010. Antarctic penguin response to habitat change as Earth's troposphere reaches 2°C above preindustrial levels. Ecological Monographs, 80, 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bensch, S. & Grahn, M. 1993. A new method of estimating individual speed of molt. Condor, 95, 305–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bierman, W.H. & Voous, K.H. 1950. Birds observed and collected during the whaling expeditions of the ‘Willem Barendsz’ in the Antarctic, 1946–1947 and 1947–1948. Ardea, 37(Suppl.), 1–121.Google Scholar
Bridge, E.S. 2006. Influences of morphology and behavior on wing-molt strategies in seabirds. Marine Ornithology, 34, 7–19.Google Scholar
Brown, R.S., Norman, F.I. & Eades, D.W. 1986. Notes on blue and Kerguelen petrels found beach-washed in Victoria, 1984. Emu, 86, 228–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrascal, L.M. & Polo, V. 2006. Effects of wing area reduction on winter body mass and foraging behaviour in coal tits: field and aviary experiments. Animal Behaviour, 72, 663–672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chai, P. 1997. Hummingbird hovering energetics during moult of primary flight feathers. Journal of Experimental Biology, 200, 1527–1536.Google ScholarPubMed
Cherel, Y., Bocher, P., Trouvé, C. & Weimerskirch, H. 2002. Diet and feeding ecology of blue petrels Halobaena caerulea at Iles Kerguelen, Southern Indian Ocean. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 228, 283–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cherel, Y., Phillips, R.A., Hobson, K.A. & McGill, R.A.R. 2006. Stable isotope evidence of diverse species-specific and individual wintering strategies in seabirds. Biology Letters, 2, 301–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cherel, Y., Quillfeldt, P., Delord, K. & Weimerskirch, H. 2016. Combination of at-sea activity, geolocation and feather stable isotopes documents where and when seabirds moult. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 4, 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, A. 2005. The scaling of primary flight feather length and mass in relation to wing shape, function and habitat. Ibis, 147, 283–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De la Hera, I., Desante, D.F. & Milá, B. 2012. Feather growth rate and mass in Nearctic passerines with variable migratory behavior and molt pattern. Auk, 129, 222–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dilley, B.J., Davies, D., Connan, M., Schramm, M. & Ryan, P.G. 2017. The distribution and abundance of blue petrels (Halobaena caerulea) breeding at subantarctic Marion Island. Emu, 117, 222–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ducklow, H.W., Baker, K., Martinson, D.G., Quetin, L.B., Ross, R.M., Smith, R.C., et al. 2007. Marine pelagic ecosystems: the West Antarctic Peninsula. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B362, 67–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fugler, S.R., Hunter, S., Newton, I.P. & Steele, W.K. 1987. Breeding biology of blue petrels Halobaena caerulea at the Prince Edward Islands. Emu, 87, 103–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, A.M. 1982. Reactions of some seabirds to a ship in the Southern Ocean. Ostrich, 53, 228–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haukioja, E. 1971. Flightlessness in some moulting passerines in northern Europe. Ornis Fennica, 48, 101–116.Google Scholar
Hedenström, A. & Sunada, S. 1999. On the aerodynamics of moult gaps in birds. Journal of Experimental Biology, 202, 67–76.Google ScholarPubMed
Jonssön, K.I. 1997. Capital and income breeding as alternative tactics of resource use in reproduction. Oikos, 78, 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawton, K., Robertson, G., Kirkwood, R., Valencia, J., Schlatter, R. & Smith, D. 2006. An estimate of population sizes of burrowing seabirds at the Diego Ramirez archipelago, Chile, using distance sampling and burrow-scoping. Polar Biology, 29, 229–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lind, J. 2001. Escape flight in moulting tree sparrows (Passer montanus). Functional Ecology, 15, 29–35.Google Scholar
Lindström, Å., Visser, G.H. & Daan, S. 1993. The energetic cost of feather synthesis is proportional to basal metabolic rate. Physiological Zoology, 66, 490–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marchant, S. & Higgins, P.J. 1990. Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic birds, Vol. 1: Ratites to ducks. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Meredith, M.P. & King, J.C. 2005. Rapid climate change in the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula during the second half of the 20th century. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, 10.1029/2005GL024042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, M.E. 1996. Energetics and nutrition of molt. In Carey, C., ed. Avian energetics and nutritional ecology. Berlin: Springer, 158–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Navarro, J., Cardador, L., Brown, R. & Phillips, R.A. 2015. Spatial distribution and ecological niches of non-breeding planktivorous petrels. Scientific Reports, 5, 12164.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Phillips, R.A., Bearhop, S., McGill, R.A.R. & Dawson, D.A. 2009. Stable isotopes reveal individual variation in migration strategies and habitat preferences in a suite of seabirds during the nonbreeding period. Oecologia, 160, 795–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portugal, S.J., Green, J.A. & Butler, P.J. 2007. Annual changes in body mass and resting metabolism in captive barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis): the importance of wing moult. Journal of Experimental Biology, 210, 1391–1397.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quillfeldt, P., Cherel, Y., Masello, J.F., Delord, K., McGill, R.A.R., Furness, R.W., et al. 2015. Half a world apart? Overlap in nonbreeding distributions of Atlantic and Indian Ocean thin-billed prions. PLoS ONE, 10, e0125007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ribic, C.A., Ainley, D.G., Ford, G., Fraser, W.R., Tynan, C.T. & Woehler, E.J. 2011. Water masses, ocean fronts, and the structure of Antarctic seabird communities: putting the eastern Bellingshausen Sea in perspective. Deep Sea Research II, 58, 1695–1709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohwer, V.G. & Rohwer, S. 2013. How do birds adjust the time required to replace their flight feathers? Auk, 130, 699–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohwer, S., Ricklefs, R.E., Rohwer, V.G. & Copple, M.M. 2009. Allometry of the duration of flight feather molt in birds. PLoS Biology, 7, e1000132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ropert-Coudert, Y., Hindell, M.A., Phillips, R., Charrassin, J.-B., Trudelle, L. & Raymond, B. 2014. Biogeographic patterns of birds and mammals. In Broyer, De, Koubbi, C., Griffiths, P., Raymond, H.J., Udekem d'Acoz, B., d', C., van de Putte, A.P., et al. eds. Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean. Cambridge: Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, 364–387.Google Scholar
Ryan, P.G., Avery, G., Rose, B., Ross, G.J.B., Sinclair, J.C. & Vernon, C.J. 1989. The Southern Ocean seabird irruption to South African waters during winter 1984. Cormorant, 17, 41–55.Google Scholar
Ryan, P.G., Dilley, B.J., Jones, C. & Bond, A. 2015. Blue petrels breeding on Gough Island. Ostrich, 89, 193–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, P.G., Le Bouard, F. & Lee, J. 2017. Westward range extension of short-tailed shearwaters in the Southern Ocean. Polar Biology, 40, 2323–2327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szijj, L.J. 1967. Notes on the winter distribution of birds in the western Antarctic and adjacent Pacific waters. Auk, 84, 366–378.Google Scholar
Tasker, M.L., Jones, P.H., Dixon, T.J. & Blake, B.F. 1984. Counting seabirds at sea from ships: a review of methods employed and a suggestion for a standardized approach. Auk, 101, 567–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trivelpiece, W.Z., Hinke, J.T., Miller, A.K., Reiss, C.S., Trivelpiece, S.G. & Watters, G.M. 2011. Variability in krill biomass links harvesting and climate warming to penguin population changes in Antarctica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, 7625–7628.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wanless, S. & Harris, M.P. 1988. Seabird records from the Bellingshausen, Amundsen and Ross seas. British Antarctic Survey Bulletin, no. 81, 87–92.Google Scholar
Warham, J. 1996. The behaviour, population biology and physiology of the petrels. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Zink, R.M. 1981. Observations of seabirds during a cruise from Ross Island to Anvers Island, Antarctica. Wilson Bulletin, 93, 1–20.Google Scholar