Browsing by Author "Paiva, Vitor H."
Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- Corrigendum to “Quantifying annual spatial consistency in chick-rearing seabirds to inform important site identification” [Biol. Conserv. 281 (2023) 109994]Publication . Beal, Martin; Catry, Paulo; Phillips, Richard A.; Oppel, Steffen; Arnould, John P.Y.; Bogdanova, Maria; Bolton, Mark; Carneiro, Ana P.B.; Clatterbuck, Corey; Conners, Melinda; Daunt, Francis; Delord, Karine; Elliott, Kyle; Fromant, Aymeric; Granadeiro, José P.; Green, Jonathan A.; Halsey, Lewis; Hamer, Keith C.; Ito, Motohiro; Jeavons, Ruth; Kim, Jeong-Hoon; Kokubun, Nobuo; Koyama, Shiho; Lane, Jude V; Lee, Won Young; Matsumoto, Sakiko; Orben, Rachael; Owen, Ellie; Paiva, Vitor H.; Patterson, Allison; Pollock, Christopher J.; Ramos, Jaime A.; Sagar, Paul; Sato, Katsufumi; Shaffer, Scott; Soanes, Louise; Takahashi, Akinori; Thompson, David; Thorne, Lesley; Torres, Leigh; Watanuki, Yutaka; Waugh, Susan M.; Weimerskirch, Henri; Whelan, Shannon; Yoda, Ken; Xavier, J. C.; Dias, Maria P.Animal tracking has afforded insights into patterns of space use in numerous species and thereby informed areabased conservation planning. A crucial consideration when estimating spatial distributions from tracking data is whether the sample of tracked animals is representative of the wider population. However, it may also be important to track animals in multiple years to capture changes in distribution in response to varying environmental conditions. Using GPS-tracking data from 23 seabird species, we assessed the importance of multi-year sampling for identifying important sites for conservation during the chick-rearing period, when seabirds are most spatially constrained. We found a high degree of spatial overlap among distributions from different years in most species. Multi-year sampling often captured a significantly higher portion of reference distributions (based on all data for a population) than sampling in a single year. However, we estimated that data from a single year would on average miss only 5 % less of the full distribution of a population compared to equal-sized samples collected across three years (min: − 0.3 %, max: 17.7 %, n = 23). Our results suggest a key consideration for identifying important sites from tracking data is whether enough individuals were tracked to provide a representative estimate of the population distribution during the sampling period, rather than that tracking necessarily take place in multiple years. By providing an unprecedented multi-species perspective on annual spatial consistency, this work has relevance for the application of tracking data to informing the conservation of seabirds.
- Meta-population feeding grounds of Cory's shearwater in the subtropical Atlantic Ocean: implications for the definition of Marine Protected Areas based on tracking studiesPublication . Ramos, Raül; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Rodríguez, Beneharo; Navarro, Joan; Paiva, Vitor H.; Bécares, Juan; Reyes-González, José M.; Fagundes, Isabel; Ruiz, Asunción; Arcos, Pep; González-Solís, Jacob; Catry, PauloAim: Apical pelagic species forage in predictable habitats, and their movements should signal biologically and ecologically significant areas of the marine ecosystem. Several countries are now engaged in identifying these areas based on animal tracking, but this is often limited to a few individuals from one breeding population, which may result in biased portrayals of the key marine habitats. To help identify such foraging areas, we compiled tracking data of a marine top predator from the main breeding colonies in the Central Macaronesia. Location: North-east Atlantic Ocean. Methods: Over seven years, we tracked the foraging movements of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) from several populations during the chick-rearing period using global positioning system and platform terminal transmitter devices. Results: We obtained foraging trips from 174 shearwaters breeding on six important colonies representative of the range occupied in the Macaronesian Archipelagos of Madeira, Salvages and Canaries. Our results show that birds orient and move rapidly towards the closest neritic waters over the African continental shelf. Birds from different colonies show substantial spatial segregation in their foraging grounds but consistently overlap in some specific foraging areas along the Canary Current characterized by high productivity. By weighting the use of foraging grounds according to the size of each study population, we inferred the overall exploitation of such areas. Main: conclusions Our meta-population approach provides a more comprehensive picture of space use from both perspectives: the studied species and the Canary Current system. Foraging grounds consistently used by several populations may not be adequately identified by tracking a single population, and therefore, multiple population tracking studies are needed to properly delineate key conservation areas and inform conservation planning in the marine ecosystem. Finally, we highlight the long-term stability and sustainability of identified foraging areas and propose that countries with geographical jurisdictions over the Canary Current area should work towards multilateral agreements to set management plans for this key marine ecosystem.
- Methods to detect spatial biases in tracking studies caused by differential representativeness of individuals, populations and timePublication . Pujol, Virginia Morera; Catry, Paulo; Magalhães, Maria; Peron, Clara; Reyes‐González, José Manuel; Granadeiro, José P.; Militão, Teresa; Dias, Maria P.; Oro, Daniel; Dell'Omo, Giacomo; Müller, Martina; Paiva, Vitor H.; Metzger, Benjamin; Neves, V C; Navarro, Joan; Karris, Georgios; Xirouchakis, Stavros; Cecere, Jacopo G.; Zamora‐López, Antonio; Forero, Manuel G.; Ouni, Ridha; Romdhane, Mohamed Salah; De Felipe, Fernanda; Zajková, Zuzana; Cruz‐Flores, Marta; Grémillet, David; González‐Solís, Jacob; Ramos, RaülAim Over the last decades, the study of movement through tracking data has grown exceeding the expectations of movement ecologists. This has posed new challenges, specifically when using individual tracking data to infer higher-level distributions (e.g. population and species). Sources of variability such as individual site fidelity (ISF), environmental stochasticity over time, and space-use variability across species ranges must be considered, and their effects identified and corrected, to produce accurate estimates of spatial distribution using tracking data. Innovation We developed R functions to detect the effect of these sources of variability in the distribution of animal groups when inferred from individual tracking data. These procedures can be adapted for their use in most tracking datasets and tracking techniques. We demonstrated our procedures with simulated datasets and showed their applicability on a real-world dataset containing 1346 year-round migratory trips from 805 individuals of three closely related seabird species breeding in 34 colonies in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, spanning 10 years. We detected an effect of ISF in one of the colonies, but no effect of the environmental stochasticity on the distribution of birds for any of the species. We also identified among-colony variability in nonbreeding space use for one species, with significant effects of population size and longitude. Main conclusions This work provides a useful, much-needed tool for researchers using animal tracking data to model species distributions or establish conservation measures. This methodology may be applied in studies using individual tracking data to accurately infer the distribution of a population or species and support the delineation of important areas for conservation based on tracking data. This step, designed to precede any analysis, has become increasingly relevant with the proliferation of studies using large tracking datasets that has accompanied the globalization process in science driving collaborations and tracking data sharing initiatives.
- Migratory Connectivity and Non‐Breeding Habitat Segregation Across Biogeographical Scales in Closely Related Seabird TaxaPublication . Morera‐Pujol, Virginia; Catry, Paulo; Magalhães, Maria; Péron, Clara; Reyes‐González, José Manuel; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Militão, Teresa; Dias, Maria P.; Oro, Daniel; Igual, José Manuel; Dell'Omo, Giacomo; Müller, Martina; Paiva, Vitor H.; Metzger, Benjamin; Neves, Verónica; Navarro, Joan; Karris, Georgios; Xirouchakis, Stavros; Cecere, Jacopo G.; Zamora‐Marín, José Manuel; Forero, Manuela G.; Afán, Isabel; Ouni, Ridha; Romdhane, Mohamed Salah; Felipe, Fernanda De; Zajková, Zuzana; Cruz‐Flores, Marta; Grémillet, David; González‐Solís, Jacob; Ramos, RaülIn highly mobile species, Migratory Connectivity (MC) has relevant consequences in population dynamics, genetic mixing, conservation and management. Additionally, in colonially breeding species, the maintenance of the breeding geographical structure during the non‐breeding period, that is, a strong MC, can promote isolation and population divergence, which ultimately can affect the process of lineage sorting. In geographically structured populations, studying the MC and differences in environmental preferences among colonies, populations, or taxa can improve our understanding of the ecological divergence among them.We investigated the MC and non‐breeding ecological niche of three seabird taxa from the genus colonies, we assess the level (from taxa to colony) at which MC and non‐breeding spatial and environmental segregation emerge. At a taxon level, we found a clear difference in the non‐breeding distributions between Cory's. and Scopoli's shearwaters, and a clear ecological divergence between Cory's and Cape Verde shearwaters. At an intermediate aggregation level, we found that birds breeding in proximity had similar non‐breeding habitat preferences, while birds breeding in very distant colonies (and therefore classified in different populations) had different non‐breeding habitat preferences. Furthermore, within each taxon, we found more structure (i.e. stronger MC) and non‐breeding divergence at an intermediate aggregation level than at the colony scale, where MC was weak. Main Conclusions These results suggest that conspecifics from nearby colonies mix in common non‐breeding areas, but not with birds from more distant colonies or different taxa. These results support the need for management and conservation strategies that take into account this structure when dealing with migratory species with high connectivity.
- Monitoring of mercury in the mesopelagic domain of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans using body feathers of Bulwer's petrel as a bioindicatorPublication . Furtado, Ricardo; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Gatt, Marie C.; Rounds, Rachel; Horikoshi, Kazuo; Paiva, Vitor H.; Menezes, Dilia; Pereira, Eduarda; Catry, PauloGlobal mercury pollution has markedly and consistently grown over the past 70 years (although with regional variations in trends) and is a source of major concern. Mercury contamination is particularly prevalent in biota of the mesopelagic layers of the open ocean, but these realms are little studied, and we lack a large scale picture of contamination in living organisms of this region. The Bulwer's petrel Bulweria bulwerii, a species of migratory seabird, is a highly specialised predator of mesopelagic fish and squid, and therefore can be used as a bioindicator for the mesopelagic domain. Mercury accumulated by the birds through diet is excreted into feathers during the moulting process in adults and feather growth in chicks, reflecting contamination in the non-breeding and breeding periods, respectively, and hence the influence of different, largely non-overlapping breeding and non-breeding ranges. We studied mercury in feathers and the trophic position in two colonies from the Atlantic Ocean (Portugal and Cape Verde) and two colonies from the Pacific Ocean (Japan and Hawaii). We found significantly lower levels of mercury in adult and chick samples from the Pacific Ocean compared with samples from the Atlantic Ocean. However, we did not detect differences in trophic position of chicks among colonies and oceans, suggesting that differences in mercury measured in feathers reflect levels of environmental contamination, rather than differences in the structure of the trophic chain in different oceans. We conclude that despite a reduction in mercury levels in the Atlantic in recent decades, mesopelagic organisms in this ocean remain more heavily contaminated than in the Pacific at tropical and subtropical latitudes. We suggest that Bulwer's petrel is a highly suitable species to monitor the global contamination of mercury in the mesopelagic domain.
- Multispecies tracking reveals a major seabird hotspot in the North AtlanticPublication . Davies, Tammy E.; Carneiro, Ana P.B.; Tarzia, Marguerite; Wakefield, Ewan; Hennicke, Janos C.; Frederiksen, Morten; Hansen, Erpur Snær; Campos, Bruna; Hazin, Carolina; Lascelles, Ben; Anker‐Nilssen, Tycho; Arnardóttir, Hólmfríður; Barrett, Robert T.; Biscoito, Manuel; Bollache, Loïc; Boulinier, Thierry; Catry, Paulo; Ceia, Filipe R.; Chastel, Olivier; Christensen‐Dalsgaard, Signe; Cruz‐Flores, Marta; Danielsen, Jóhannis; Daunt, Francis; Dunn, Euan; Egevang, Carsten; Fagundes, Ana Isabel; Fayet, Annette L.; Fort, Jérôme; Furness, Robert W.; Gilg, Olivier; González‐Solís, Jacob; Granadeiro, J. P.; Grémillet, David; Guilford, Tim; Hanssen, Sveinn Are; Harris, Michael P.; Hedd, April; Huffeldt, Nicholas Per; Jessopp, Mark; Kolbeinsson, Yann; Krietsch, Johannes; Lang, Johannes; Linnebjerg, Jannie Fries; Lorentsen, Svein‐Håkon; Madeiros, Jeremy; Magnusdottir, Ellen; Mallory, Mark L.; McFarlane Tranquilla, Laura; Merkel, Flemming R.; Militão, Teresa; Moe, Børge; Montevecchi, William A.; Morera‐Pujol, Virginia; Mosbech, Anders; Neves, Verónica; Newell, Mark A.; Olsen, Bergur; Paiva, Vitor H.; Peter, Hans‐Ulrich; Petersen, Aevar; Phillips, Richard A.; Ramírez, Iván; Ramos, Jaime A.; Ramos, Raül; Ronconi, Robert A.; Ryan, Peter G.; Schmidt, Niels Martin; Sigurðsson, Ingvar A.; Sittler, Benoît; Steen, Harald; Stenhouse, Iain J.; Strøm, Hallvard; Systad, Geir H. R.; Thompson, Paul; Thórarinsson, Thorkell L.; Bemmelen, Rob S.A.; Wanless, Sarah; Zino, Francis; Dias, Maria P.The conservation of migratory marine species, including pelagic seabirds, is challenging because their movements span vast distances frequently beyond national jurisdictions. Here, we aim to identify important aggregations of seabirds in the North Atlantic to inform ongoing regional conservation efforts. Using tracking, phenology, and population data, we mapped the abundance and diversity of 21 seabird species. This revealed a major hotspot associated with a discrete area of the subpolar frontal zone, used annually by 2.9–5 million seabirds from ≥56 colonies in the Atlantic: the first time this magnitude of seabird concentrations has been documented in the high seas. The hotspot is temporally stable and amenable to site-based conservation and is under consideration as a marine protected area by the OSPAR Commission. Protection could help mitigate current and future threats facing species in the area. Overall, our approach provides an exemplar data-driven pathway for future conservation efforts on the high seas.
- Parent–offspring dietary segregation of Cory’s shearwaters breeding in contrasting environmentsPublication . Alonso, Hany Rafael de Drummond Ludovice Garcia; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Paiva, Vitor H.; Dias, Ana S.; Ramos, Jaime; Catry, PauloIn pelagic seabirds, who often explore distant food resources, information is usually scarce on the level of trophic segregation between parents and their offspring. To investigate this issue, we used GPS tracking, stable isotopes and dietary information of Cory’s shearwaters Calonectris diomedea breeding in contrasting environments. Foraging trips at Selvagem Grande (an oceanic island) mainly targeted the distant African coast, while at Berlenga island (located on the continental shelf), shearwaters foraged mainly over nearby shelf waters. The degree of isotopic segregation between adults and chicks, based on d13C, differed markedly between the two sites, indicating that adult birds at Selvagem fed their chicks with a mixture of shelf and offshore pelagic prey but assimilated more prey captured on coastal shelf waters. Isotopic differences between age classes at Berlenga were much smaller and may have resulted from limited dietary segregation or from age-related metabolic differences. The diet of shearwaters was also very different between the two colonies, with offshore pelagic prey only being detected at Selvagem Grande. Our findings suggest that spatial foraging constraints influence resource partitioning between pelagic seabirds and their offspring and can lead to a parent–offspring dietary segregation.
- Polar marine biology science in Portugal and Spain: Recent advances and future perspectivesPublication . Xavier, José C.; Barbosa, Andrés; Agustí, Susana; Alonso-Sáez, Laura; Alvito, Pedro; Ameneiro, Julia; Ávila, Conxita; Baeta, Alexandra; Canário, João; Carmona, Raquel; Catry, Paulo; Ceia, Filipe; Clark, Melody S.; Cristobo, Francisco J.; Cruz, Bruno; Duarte, Carlos M.; Figuerola, Blanca; Gili, Josep-Maria; Gonçalves, Ana R.; Gordillo, Francisco J. L.; Granadeiro, José Pedro; Guerreiro, Miguel; Isla, Enrique; Jiménez, Carlos; López-González, Pablo J.; Lourenço, Sílvia; Marques, João C.; Moreira, Elena; Mota, Ana M.; Nogueira, Marta; Núñez-Pons, Laura; Orejas, Covadonga; Paiva, Vitor H.; Palanques, Albert; Pearson, Gareth A.; Pedrós-Alió, Carlos; Peña Cantero, Álvaro L.; Power, Deborah M.; Ramos, Jaime; Rossi, Sergi; Seco, José; Sañé, Elisabet; Serrão, Ester A.; Taboada, Sergi; Tavares, Sílvia; Teixidó, Núria; Vaqué, Dolors; Valente, Tiago; Vázquez, Elsa; Vieira, Rui P.; Viñegla, BenjaminPolar marine ecosystems have global ecological and economic importance because of their unique biodiversity and their major role in climate processes and commercial fisheries, among others. Portugal and Spain have been highly active in a wide range of disciplines in marine biology of the Antarctic and the Arctic. The main aim of this paper is to provide a synopsis of some of the results and initiatives undertaken by Portuguese and Spanish polar teams within the field of marine sciences, particularly on benthic and pelagic biodiversity (species diversity and abundance, including microbial, molecular, physiological and chemical mechanisms in polar organisms), conservation and ecology of top predators (particularly penguins, albatrosses and seals), and pollutants and evolution of marine organisms associated with major issues such as climate change, ocean acidification and UV radiation effects. Both countries have focused their polar research more in the Antarctic than in the Arctic. Portugal and Spain should encourage research groups to continue increasing their collaborations with other countries and develop multi-disciplinary research projects, as well as to maintain highly active memberships within major organizations, such as the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR), the International Arctic Science Council (IASC) and the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), and in international research projects.
- Quantifying annual spatial consistency in chick-rearing seabirds to inform important site identificationPublication . Beal, Martin; Catry, Paulo; Phillips, Richard A.; Oppel, Steffen; Arnould, John P.Y.; Bogdanova, Maria I.; Bolton, Mark; Carneiro, Ana P.B.; Clatterbuck, Corey; Conners, Melinda; Daunt, Francis; Delord, Karine; Elliott, Kyle; Fromant, Aymeric; Granadeiro, José P.; Green, Jonathan A.; Halsey, Lewis; Hamer, Keith C.; Ito, Motohiro; Jeavons, Ruth; Kim, Jeong-Hoon; Kokubun, Nobuo; Koyama, Shiho; Lane, Jude V.; Lee, Won Young; Matsumoto, Sakiko; Orben, Rachael; Owen, Ellie; Paiva, Vitor H.; Patterson, Allison; Pollock, Christopher J.; Ramos, Jaime A.; Sagar, Paul; Sato, Katsufumi; Shaffer, Scott A.; Soanes, Louise; Takahashi, Akinori; Thompson, David R.; Thorne, Lesley; Torres, Leigh; Watanuki, Yutaka; Waugh, Susan M.; Weimerskirch, Henri; Whelan, Shannon; Yoda, Ken; Xavier, José C.; Dias, Maria P.Animal tracking has afforded insights into patterns of space use in numerous species and thereby informed area-based conservation planning. A crucial consideration when estimating spatial distributions from tracking data is whether the sample of tracked animals is representative of the wider population. However, it may also be important to track animals in multiple years to capture changes in distribution in response to varying environmental conditions. Using GPS-tracking data from 23 seabird species, we assessed the importance of multi-year sampling for identifying important sites for conservation during the chick-rearing period, when seabirds are most spatially constrained. We found a high degree of spatial overlap among distributions from different years in most species. Multi-year sampling often captured a significantly higher portion of reference distributions (based on all data for a population) than sampling in a single year. However, we estimated that data from a single year would on average miss only 5 % less of the full distribution of a population compared to equal-sized samples collected across three years (min: −0.3 %, max: 17.7 %, n = 23). Our results suggest a key consideration for identifying important sites from tracking data is whether enough individuals were tracked to provide a representative estimate of the population distribution during the sampling period, rather than that tracking necessarily take place in multiple years. By providing an unprecedented multi-species perspective on annual spatial consistency, this work has relevance for the application of tracking data to informing the conservation of seabirds.
- Quantifying annual spatial consistency in chick-rearing seabirds to inform important site identificationPublication . Beal, Martin; Catry, Paulo; Phillips, Richard A.; Oppel, Steffen; Arnould, John P.Y.; Bogdanova, Maria I.; Bolton, Mark; Carneiro, Ana P.B.; Clatterbuck, Corey; Conners, Melinda; Daunt, Francis; Delord, Karine; Elliott, Kyle; Fromant, Aymeric; Granadeiro, José P.; Green, Jonathan A.; Halsey, Lewis; Hamer, Keith C.; Ito, Motohiro; Jeavons, Ruth; Kim, Jeong-Hoon; Kokubun, Nobuo; Koyama, Shiho; Lane, Jude V.; Lee, Won Young; Matsumoto, Sakiko; Orben, Rachael A.; Owen, Ellie; Paiva, Vitor H.; Patterson, Allison; Pollock, Christopher J.; Ramos, Jaime A.; Sagar, Paul; Sato, Katsufumi; Shaffer, Scott; Soanes, Louise; Takahashi, Akinori; Thompson, David R.; Thorne, Lesley; Torres, Leigh; Watanuki, Yutaka; Waugh, Susan M.; Weimerskirch, Henri; Whelan, Shannon; Yoda, Ken; Xavier, José C.; Dias, Maria P.Animal tracking has afforded insights into patterns of space use in numerous species and thereby informed areabased conservation planning. A crucial consideration when estimating spatial distributions from tracking data is whether the sample of tracked animals is representative of the wider population. However, it may also be important to track animals in multiple years to capture changes in distribution in response to varying environmental conditions. Using GPS-tracking data from 23 seabird species, we assessed the importance of multi-year sampling for identifying important sites for conservation during the chick-rearing period, when seabirds are most spatially constrained. We found a high degree of spatial overlap among distributions from different years in most species. Multi-year sampling often captured a significantly higher portion of reference distributions (based on all data for a population) than sampling in a single year. However, we estimated that data from a single year would on average miss only 5 % less of the full distribution of a population compared to equal-sized samples collected across three years (min: − 0.3 %, max: 17.7 %, n = 23). Our results suggest a key consideration for identifying important sites from tracking data is whether enough individuals were tracked to provide a representative estimate of the population distribution during the sampling period, rather than that tracking necessarily take place in multiple years. By providing an unprecedented multi-species perspective on annual spatial consistency, this work has relevance for the application of tracking data to informing the conservation of seabirds.