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Long-term declines in common breeding seabirds in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2019

MASAYUKI SENZAKI Open the ORCID record for MASAYUKI SENZAKI [Opens in a new window] ,
AKIRA TERUI ,
NAOKI TOMITA ,
FUMIO SATO ,
YOSHIHIRO FUKUDA ,
YOSHIHIRO KATAOKA  and
YUTAKA WATANUKI
MASAYUKI SENZAKI*
Affiliation:
Center for Environmental Biology and Ecosystem Studies, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Onogawa 16-2, Tsukuba City, Ibaraki 305-8506, Japan, and Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Nishi 5, Kita 10, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0810, Japan.
AKIRA TERUI
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Kita 9, Nishi 9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8589, Japan; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, 1479 Gortner Avenue, St Paul, MN 55108, USA; and Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA.
NAOKI TOMITA
Affiliation:
Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, Konoyama 115, Abiko, Chiba, 270-1145, Japan.
FUMIO SATO
Affiliation:
Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, Konoyama 115, Abiko, Chiba, 270-1145, Japan.
YOSHIHIRO FUKUDA
Affiliation:
Shiretoko Seabird Research Club, Utoro-higashi 429, Shari, 099-4335, Japan.
YOSHIHIRO KATAOKA
Affiliation:
NPO Etopirika Fund, Tofutsu 157, Hamanaka, 088-1522, Japan.
YUTAKA WATANUKI
Affiliation:
Faculty of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, Minato-cho 3-1-1, Hakodate, Japan.
*
*Author for correspondence; email: [email protected]
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Summary

Global seabird populations are in decline, with nearly half of all seabird species currently in an extinction crisis. Understanding long-term seabird population trends is an essential first step to inform conservation actions. In this study, we assembled historical breeding records of seabirds throughout the Japanese archipelago and quantified the long-term population trends of 10 major breeding seabird species using a hierarchical Bayesian state-space model. The model revealed that six species had increasing or no detectable trends (Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus, Leach’s Storm Petrel Oceanodroma leucorhoa, Pelagic Cormorant Phalacrocorax pelagicus, Japanese Cormorant Phalacrocorax capillatus, Spectacled Guillemot Cepphus carbo, and Rhinoceros Auklet Cerorhinca monocerata). However, decreasing trends were found not only in nationally threatened species (Common Murre Uria aalge, and Tufted Puffin Fratercula cirrhata) but also common species that are often described as abundant (Black-tailed Gull Larus crassirostris and Slaty-backed Gull Larus schistisagus). These declining species have declined to 3–35% of baseline levels over the past 30 years. This study provides the first evidence of long-term declines in common and widespread seabirds in Japan.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bird Conservation International , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 434 - 446
Copyright
© BirdLife International, 2019

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