Coastal Birds Carry Toxic Ocean Metals Inland

A collaborative research team led by Queen's University biologists has found that potent metals like mercury and lead, ingested by Arctic seabirds feeding in the ocean, end up in the sediment of polar ponds.

"Birds feeding on different diets will funnel different 'cocktails' of metal contaminants from the ocean back to terrestrial ecosystems, which can then affect other living organisms," says lead author Neal Michelutti, a research scientist at Queen's Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL).
The study will be published on-line the week of May 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
The team collected sediment cores from two ponds on a small island in the Canadian Arctic that is home to the nests of two kinds of seabirds: Arctic terns, which feed primarily on fish, and common eider ducks which feed mainly on mollusks. The researchers analyzed the pond sediment for metals and other indicators of the birds' activity.
They found significant differences between the samples that aligned with the birds' diets. There were higher concentrations of metals such as mercury and cadmium in the sites inhabited by terns, while the nearby eider site recorded higher amounts of lead, manganese, and aluminum. The patterns of metals in the sediment cores matched those recorded in the different bird species' tissues.
Queen's biology professor John Smol says the findings can be applied to other locations. "The High Arctic is an excellent 'natural laboratory' to undertake such studies, due to the lack of local industries," notes Dr. Smol, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, and winner of the 2004 NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal as Canada's top scientist. "However, the presence of seabirds on every continent suggests similar processes are operating along coastlines worldwide.
"Our concern is that these areas of elevated metals and other contaminants occur exactly where biological activity is greatest," he adds.
"The seabirds are obviously not directly to blame for the elevated metal concentrations in the ponds," says team member Jules Blais, a biology professor from the University of Ottawa. "They are simply carrying out their natural behaviours and lifecycles, but have become unwitting vectors of pollutants in an increasingly industrial age."
Other members of the multidisciplinary team include Queen's biology undergraduate student Jaclyn Brash and PhD candidate Joshua Thienpont, Linda Kimpe from the University of Ottawa, Marianne Douglas (University of Alberta) and Mark Mallory (the Canadian Wildlife Service).
This research was funded primarily by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP).

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Queen's University.

Wandering Albatross: Is Foraging Efficiency a Key Parameter in Aging?

The male wandering albatross, which can live more than 50 years, modifies its foraging behavior with age. CNRS researchers, working with the Université de Bourgogne, have for the first time shown such changes by studying aging in these birds under natural conditions.

The scientists have discovered that old males forage in different waters from younger males, and are less active at the sea surface. However, none of the classic markers of human aging are altered in old albatrosses, which underlines the importance of taking account of foraging efficiency in studies on aging.
The work, carried out with the backing in particular of IPEV1 and the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, has been published online on the website of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
Aging in animals, the causes of which are increasingly well understood in laboratory conditions, is hardly ever studied in a natural environment. Researchers from the 'Marine Predator' group at CNRS's Chizé Center for Biological Studies, working with the 'Biogeosciences-Dijon' Unit (CNRS / Université de Bourgogne), studied wandering albatrosses, which stand out among other birds because they are exceptionally long-lived2 (over 50 years). With a life expectancy close to that of humans, they therefore make exceptional models for the study of aging in the natural environment. Wandering albatrosses travel huge distances. During their lifetime, they fly millions of kilometers across the Southern Ocean, only returning to dry land to breed once every two years. Their reproductive performance declines from the age of thirty, but the reasons for this decline were unknown until now.
The scientists undertook the first multidisciplinary study ever carried out on the aging of these seabirds under natural conditions. They did this by observing around a hundred albatrosses aged 6-49 years breeding on Possession Island in the Crozet islands (French Southern and Antarctic Territories). By using miniature devices (Argos transmitters and activity loggers), they were able to analyze foraging trips by the birds during the egg incubation stage.
The researchers discovered that the older male albatrosses foraged in areas of ocean that were somewhat different from those favored by younger birds. For reasons that remain unclear, during the incubation period they undertake very long foraging trips to the cold waters of the Antarctic, at a distance of over 3000 km from their nest. They are less active at the sea surface and return to dry land with elevated levels of stress hormone, which suggests a fall in foraging efficiency (a parameter which is very hard to measure except under natural conditions). Only males appear to modify their foraging strategy with age. No difference was observed between females aged over 30 and younger birds.
At the same time, the researchers measured seven physiological parameters naturally associated with aging in humans, including stress hormone (corticosterone) levels, parental hormone (prolactin) levels, the amount of oxidative stress, the ability of plasma to respond to attack by free radicals, and humoral immunity levels. Quite unexpectedly, no variation in these parameters was detected for the older albatrosses (30-49 years old) within this population. The older birds therefore appear to maintain a 'normal' physiological level.
This study is the first to directly show that, under natural conditions, several aspects of foraging behavior decline with age, without this resulting from a deterioration in their physiological state. As a result, a fall in foraging efficiency may be one of the first signs of aging.
Notes
(1) Institut polaire français Paul-Emile Victor
(2) Life expectancy of birds varies considerably from one species to another, from three or four years for some passerines to over 50 years for albatrosses and shearwaters, exceeding 60 years for large species of albatross.

Vincent Julien Lecomte, Gabriele Sorci, Stéphane Cornet, Audrey Jaeger, Bruno Faivre, Emilie Arnoux, Maria Gaillard, Colette Trouvé, Dominique Besson, Olivier Chastel, and Henri Weimerskirch. Patterns of aging in the long-lived wandering albatross. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0911181107

Warmer Summers Could Create Challenges for Nesting Arctic Seabirds

Warmer, wetter weather in the Canadian Arctic could create problems for nesting seabirds, say a team of Canadian scientists who, between them, have spent over 7,000 days observing birds in the North.

Arctic birds are uniquely adapted to survive in the cold, dry summers that mark the high Arctic. However, warmer temperatures are bringing more storm events, including incidents of heavy fog, rain, freezing rain, wet snow and stronger winds.
"It's not really a surprise," says Mark Mallory, a biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Iqaluit. "If a bird is adapted to cold conditions and you make things warmer, predictably they'll find things harder."
Mortality studies in seabirds typically focus on birds in tropical or temperate regions where 'normal' causes of death include population declines due to fishery collapse, ecto-parasites like ticks, introduced predators such as rats, and storms at sea.
Mallory and two other Canadian scientists decided to combine 33 years of observation into a paper that was released in Arctic, the journal of the Arctic Institute of North America. In it, the trio track the unusual ways Arctic seabirds die and they predict that a warming climate could have serious consequences for these birds. The study is based on observations of six species of birds on 11 different seabird colonies in the eastern Arctic ranging from northern Hudson Bay to Devon Island.
Typical causes of death include crashing into each other or cliffs during heavy fog, being slammed into the ocean by Katabatic winds or, perhaps most grizzly of all, dying from a combination of heat stress and blood loss due to mosquito attacks.
"I was working at a fulmar colony and after a couple of days of fog we'd see fulmars on the sea ice, alive but with their wings broken. These birds are phenomenal flyers, but you take away their visibility to a meter or two and maybe that causes problems. In talking to my Inuit guides, they told me that they had seen this a lot, and thought that the birds flew into each other in low visibility," says Mallory.
Few birds winter in the Arctic because of the harsh climate conditions. But in the spring, there is a veritable explosion as millions of birds return to nest. Seabirds in Mallory's study area tend to spend the winter months floating in the North Atlantic ocean. When they return in the spring, conditions are often still very harsh. Mallory has seen fulmars and thick-billed murres incubate eggs with only their heads visible above the snow.
The preferred nesting sites of many seabirds are cliffs, which often prove to be very dangerous. Falling rocks and chunks of ice, as well as slides kill great numbers of birds. In fact, the authors cite one incident in which over 800 murres and kittiwakes died almost instantly when the ledges on which they were nesting collapsed. Mallory suspects cliffs could become unstable as temperatures rise, with more freeze-thaw action of ice.
And not all cliffs provide a safe haven from predators. Cliff-dwelling birds are, of course, easily accessible by other predatory birds. But Arctic foxes and even polar bears have been observed on cliff sides eating eggs, chicks or adult nesting birds.
"It's always shocking to see a polar bear on a cliff," says Mallory adding, "I saw Arctic foxes down what appeared to be effectively a vertical wall. And the Inuit report seeing more polar bears on cliffs. So these birds think they are safe, but they are not."
The Arctic has been getting warmer and increased temperatures create stronger storm fronts and bring more precipitation to what is essentially a desert region. For birds adapted to a cold, dry climate, these changes could be very challenging.
"Arctic seabirds don't do well in really heavy, wet snowfall. Chicks hatch in early August and they expect it to be dry and cool. They can't handle soaking wet for very long, even if it is warmer," says Mallory.
These birds have adapted to past climate shifts, but the changes occurred over long periods of time. It might be difficult for them to adjust to the rapid changes now underway.
"They can deal with cold and wind and storms, but within the range of what has occurred over the past decades or centuries. If you suddenly change that range, make things warmer and wetter with a different type of precipitation, that's a scenario these populations aren't adapted to."

Fishing Discard Ban Could Damage Sea Bird Success, Scientists Warn

A proposed EU ban on throwing unwanted fish overboard from commercial boats could put one of the North Sea's most successful sea birds at risk, say researchers at the University of Leeds.

New research led by Dr Keith Hamer will assess the extent to which gannets rely on unwanted fish and offal thrown from fishing boats to successfully breed and raise their chicks.
"The North Sea has undergone massive environmental changes over the last twenty years, which has put pressure on nearly all sea bird species," said Dr Hamer, from Leeds' Faculty of Biological Sciences. "Only gannets have consistently bred successfully, partly because they can travel as far as South West Norway to feed, but also because they are able to target food thrown overboard by fishing boats.
"Although discards should be stopped to protect marine biodiversity, research is needed on the impact of a ban, so policy makers can understand the best way to implement it."
Dr Hamer will work with colleagues at the universities of Exeter and Plymouth to fit GPS tracker devices on breeding pairs of gannets from twelve colonies around the UK. The gannets will also be fitted with miniaturised, fast-acting depth recorders, so the researchers can see how deep the birds dive and how they pursue prey underwater -- both indicative of the kinds of food they are targeting.
Blood and feather samples from the gannets will be analysed to determine their diet and their nests monitored to check how well they are feeding their chicks.
The data will be plotted against the location of fishing vessels in the North Sea to calculate how many of the birds are relying on discards to breed successfully.
The researchers believe that gannets may have specialised feeding habits, with some individuals relying heavily on discards while others focus on finding sand eels or diving for mackerel and herring. If this theory is correct, a ban would disproportionately affect some breeding pairs, rather than impacting to a lesser degree on the whole colony.
The research builds on more than 10 years of research on gannets by Dr Hamer in addition to work by research team members Stephen Votier in the Marine Biology & Ecology Research Centre, University of Plymouth, and Stuart Bearhop, University of Exeter, published this month in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
"We think gannets have different aptitudes and specialities and for some, that skill might be finding and following fishing boats," said Dr Hamer. "If our hypothesis is wrong and gannets are in fact generalists, with all of them making occasional use of discards, that has a different implication for policy."
There is increasing pressure on the EU to ban discards and legislation is likely in the near future. The three-year, £700,000 research project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), will help inform policy makers of how to ensure new regulations minimise potential impact on the gannets. It could also help the UK government decide where to impose marine protected areas in the North Sea.
"Although the long-term benefits of a ban will be positive, we need to accurately predict short-term impacts as well," says Dr Hamer. "If gannets have specialised to the extent we believe, rather than cut off a crucial food source overnight, a gradual phasing in of the ban would allow them time to retrain to find food elsewhere."

Complex Life of Marsh Birds: Coots Foil Nest Invaders, Reject Impostors

The American coot is a drab, seemingly unremarkable marsh bird common throughout North America. But its reproductive life is full of deception and violence.

According to biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, coots have evolved a remarkable set of cognitive abilities to thwart other coots that lay eggs in their neighbors' nests. In 2003, the researchers showed that coots can count their own eggs and reject ones laid in their nests by other coots. Their latest findings, published this week in Nature, show that coot parents can tell the difference between their own chicks and any impostors that manage to hatch in their nest, and they will violently reject most impostor chicks.

The findings are particularly striking because so many birds seem to be unable to recognize the chicks of species such as cowbirds and cuckoos, which always lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. This behavior is called brood parasitism, and its success has posed a longstanding challenge to evolutionary theorists.

"When you see a little songbird struggling to feed an enormous cowbird chick, you have to wonder why it can't recognize the parasitic chick when it is so obvious to us," said Bruce Lyon, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCSC and coauthor of the paper. "The coot study shows that chick recognition can evolve, even when the chicks are the same species and all look the same to us."

The researchers found that coots learn to recognize their own chicks each year by using the first-hatched chicks as a template to which other chicks are compared. This learning mechanism may explain why it is so hard for chick recognition to evolve among the hosts of cowbirds and cuckoos, said Dai Shizuka, a UCSC graduate student and first author of the paper.

"Cuckoo and cowbird chicks tend to hatch before the host chicks, so their hosts can't use hatching order as a cue for chick recognition," Shizuka said. "As long as recognition has to be learned, you run the risk of learning incorrectly, and that could be the bottleneck."

These findings provide indirect support for a theory proposed by Arnon Lotem of Tel Aviv University, who attributed the absence of chick recognition in most cuckoo hosts to the high cost of mistaken imprinting. By experimentally causing mistaken imprinting in coots, Shizuka and Lyon confirmed that learned chick recognition does have potential costs.

Lotem assumed a classic imprinting mechanism that would occur only once, during the adult bird's first breeding season. Coots, however, seem to "imprint" on their first-hatched chicks each year. Coots reliably imprint on their own chicks because the first-laid eggs are the first to hatch, and parasitic eggs are deposited only in nests that already have eggs in them.

"It's not that coots are exceptionally smart. They just have reliable information that allows them to do what we expect all hosts 'should' be doing to defend themselves against parasitism," Shizuka said.

The common cuckoo and brown-headed cowbird are specialists in brood parasitism, shifting the burden of parental care onto other species rather than building their own nests. In coots, brood parasitism seems to be an optional component of a reproductive strategy based on laying large numbers of eggs. Depositing a few eggs in a neighbor's nest is just another way to increase the number of potential offspring.

The chances of survival in a neighbor's nest may be slim, but coots habitually lay more eggs than are likely to survive, Lyon said. Only in the best of years is there enough food for all of the chicks; in a typical year, about half of the chicks in each brood starve to death, he said. If a parasitic chick survives, another chick in the brood must die, which explains why coots have evolved such strong defenses against parasitism.

"We actually set out to study how coots bring their brood size into alignment with the availability of food, and what role hatching order plays in the culling process. But we kept seeing anecdotal evidence in the field that something else was going on," Lyon said. "With the parasitic chicks, they don't just let them starve, they attack them with a viciousness we hadn't seen before."

The researchers got a one-year extension to their grant, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study chick recognition at their study site in British Columbia. The experiment required removing eggs from the nests at the pipping stage (when the chick starts trying to break the shell) and hatching them in incubators. This allowed the researchers to tag the chicks and record which eggs they came from before returning them to the nests in a controlled sequence.

In one set of nests, the parents got their own chicks back on the first day. After that, chicks were returned to the nests in pairs consisting of an unrelated chick and a chick that belonged to the parents. The unrelated chicks were all siblings. In a second set of nests, the first chicks returned were not related to the parents, after which chicks were returned in pairs as in the first set of nests.

In all cases, a chick's chances of survival were highest if it was returned to the nest on the first day or was a sibling of the first chicks. If the first chicks were unrelated to the parents, the parents would favor them and their siblings and drive off their own chicks. "The parents learn the first chicks they start taking care of as their own, and base their decisions about later chicks on that," Shizuka said.

Using first-hatched chicks as the basis for recognition will be adaptive only if there is a low probability of parasitic chicks hatching first, he said. In a search of the scientific literature, Shizuka found two recent examples of birds, both in Australia, that appear to be able to recognize and reject cuckoo chicks. He said he hopes to learn more about those species and find out how they compare to coots.

The researchers also want to find out what cues coot parents use to recognize their chicks. The possibilities include smell, vocal calls, and visual cues such as plumage. "Those birdall plausible hypotheses, but we don't know yet," Shizuka said.

Trying to crack an ocean mystery: What caused killer algal blooms?

Mary Sue Brancato, a marine biologist with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, checks the tags on dead seabirds caught in the algal bloom that were found on Hobuck Beach on the Makah Reservation last month. The mysterious bird-killing algae that coated Washington's ocean beaches this fall with slimy foam was the biggest and longest-lasting harmful algal bloom to hit the Northwest coast.Now the phenomenon that killed at least 10,000 seabirds — more than any known event of its kind — has scientists consumed by questions: Was it a rogue occurrence, rarely if ever to be repeated, or a sign of some fundamental marine-world shift?And did we cause it?Answers may come slowly. "You can think of it as a jigsaw puzzle with 500 pieces, but we only have about 50," said Julia Parrish, a University of Washington fisheries and oceans professor.This much is known: Toxic blooms of microscopic phytoplankton sometimes called red tides are exploding worldwide, even along pristine waters like the Northwest coast.And the organisms behind these blooms can behave unpredictably, revealing how little we know about the sea.The culprit this fall was a mushroom-shaped single-celled species, Akashiwo sanguinea, that has bloomed in Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay and saltwater from Europe to Australia and Japan without incident.But something here this time caused the cells to multiply rapidly and break open in a toxic foam. It's been recorded happening only once before — on a smaller scale, in Monterey Bay in California, in 2007.Researchers are trying to gauge whether warming surface waters or more corrosive seas might have played a role in the two blooms, or whether they were caused by a collision of shifting currents and natural atmospheric and weather cycles like El Niño. Or maybe it's all of the above — or something else."We haven't ever seen this before and now we've had two events in two years," said Raphael Kudela, an ocean-sciences professor and toxic-algae expert at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "If it happens again, I'll be concerned. Four times and I'll be really concerned."Soaplike frothThe incident this fall played like something out of a Hitchcock movie: White-winged scoters and surf scoters staggered and collapsed on Olympic Peninsula beaches in September. Then over the next six weeks, loons, grebes and murres were found dead from Neah Bay to Oregon. Just as in Monterey, a soaplike froth coated the natural oils that protect the birds from hypothermia.Researchers are still unearthing its effects: Surfers and kayakers who rode through the foam near Westport, Grays Harbor County, complained of sinus problems and a lingering loss of taste and smell; a pathologist inspecting dead birds found a few whose guts lacked any trace of normal bacteria, raising the possibility they ingested something damaging.Most disturbing to algae experts: The whole incident was unexpected. Akashiwo sanguinea isn't even among the species scientists considered harmful, said Mary Sue Brancato, a marine biologist with the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.Toxic tides aren't new to the Pacific. A crewman on Capt. George Vancouver's Voyage of Discovery died in 1793 after eating poisoned mussels.The blooms are produced by two classes of microalgae — dinoflagellates and diatoms, tiny creatures that help fuel the marine-food web.In Puget Sound, the most problematic is a type of dinoflagellate that produces a neurotoxin that can reside in shellfish. When ingested by humans, it can cause paralysis and even death.On the coast, the bigger problem is a diatom that blows in from off shore. It can produce domoic acid, which can cause seizures and death in humans.Since being detected in Washington in 1991, this diatom algae has shown up more frequently, shutting down razor-clam harvests in 1998-99 and 2002-03, and appearing in a giant swath offshore in 2004. Some scientists suspect a diatom bloom caused thousands of birds to spiral and crash into cars in California in 1961, an incident that helped inspire Hitchcock's film "The Birds."Along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, as in much of the world, blooms like these are becoming more common, getting bigger and lasting longer.Pollution is believed to influence some events as nutrients drain into the coasts in rivers and as runoff from parking lots and highways. That likely plays a role in the abundant growth of harmful blooms in Puget Sound since the 1950s — but it doesn't appear to be the case along the coast."We haven't polluted our coastal waters to the same extent they have in the East," said William Cochlan, a research scientist at the Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies at San Francisco State University.But no one disputes that phytoplankton species are showing up in new places or, as the recent bird-killing bloom revealed, responding in new ways. Indeed, no one expected that particular species, a dinoflagellate, to bloom so massively — or disastrously — off the Northwest coast.And no one knows why it did.Broad consequences?Cracking the secret could prove monumental, helping determine whether we can expect greater economic or biological consequences.Vera Trainer, who runs the harmful-algal-bloom program at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, helped produce a new study showing that a toxic diatom bloom that hits beaches and shutters a razor-clam season for a year could cost Washington's coastal economy $22 million. If other harmful blooms start arriving more often, there's no telling what the cost would be.And that's just for starters. New blooms also could signal a significant shift in the bottom of the ocean's food web that could change the distribution of all sorts of marine and seabird species.Figuring out the causes won't be easy.Kudela notes that changes to coastal upwelling patterns, as well as warming ocean-surface temperatures fueled by climate change in response to greenhouse-gas emissions, could alter the West Coast's mix of phytoplankton. And that could allow one type to out-compete others.Ted Smayda, a phytoplankton expert at the University of Rhode Island, pointed out that a similar foam produced by a related phytoplankton species in Norway does best in waters with a low pH.Scientists already have shown that Pacific Northwest waters are becoming more acidic — meaning a lower pH — as the ocean absorbs billions of tons of carbon dioxide.But Smayda also said it's possible that the blooms are part of some natural ocean rhythm we just don't understand — or a combination of all sorts of other factors."What if we're just coming into an era where dinoflagellates are coming into their own?" Smayda said."The bias among investigators, myself included, is that we tend to look for just one factor. But what we have these days is a jumble of events, and we're left asking, 'What the heck is going on?' "

Dining Out In An Ocean Of Plastic: How Foraging Albatrosses Put Plastic On The Menu

The North Pacific Ocean is now commonly referred to as the world's largest garbage dump with an area the size of the continental United States covered in plastic debris. The highly mobile Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), which forages throughout the North Pacific, is quickly becoming the poster child for the effects of plastic ingestion on marine animals due to their tendency to ingest large amounts of plastic.

Reporting in the open-access journal PLoS One, Dr. Lindsay Young of the University of Hawaii and her colleagues examined whether Laysan albatrosses nesting on Kure Atoll and Oahu, Hawaii, 2,150 km away, ingested different amounts of plastic by putting miniaturized tracking devices on birds to follow them at sea and examining their regurgitated stomach contents. Surprisingly, birds from Kure Atoll ingested almost ten times the amount of plastic compared to birds from Oahu.
Data from the tracking devices revealed that the birds were distributed over separate areas of the North Pacific during the breeding season and that birds from Kure overlapped considerably with the area of the 'western garbage patch' off of Asia which resulted in their greatly increased plastic ingestion.
"We were very surprised with the results," indicates lead author Lindsay Young. "We suspected that there may be some differences in the amount of plastic that was ingested, but to discover that birds on Kure Atoll ingested ten times the amount of plastic compared to birds on Oahu was shocking. Particularly since the colony on Oahu is less than an hour outside of urban Honolulu, and is much closer to the garbage patch in the Eastern Pacific between Hawaii and California that has received so much attention."
Young indicates that these results were further supported when the plastic items were examined -- virtually all of the plastic pieces recovered from birds on Kure Atoll had Asian characters on them indicating their likely origin, while none of the plastic pieces found in birds on Oahu had similar writing.
While sorting through the polluted stomach contents of albatross chicks was not a particularly pleasant task, the authors found humor in the situation. "We were sorting through these boluses right after Christmas, and there were so many small plastic toys in the birds from Kure Atoll that we joked that we could have assembled a complete nativity scene with them," says Young.
The most common identifiable items they found were paraphernalia from the fishing industry such as line, light sticks, oyster spacers, and lighters. The strangest item that they found? A sealed jar of face lotion with fresh smelling lotion still intact inside the jar. Unfortunately, while the albatross examined in this study were able to purge themselves of the plastic by regurgitating it, thousands of albatross die each year as a result of ingesting plastic debris. Plastic ingestion leads to blockage of the digestive tract, reduced food consumption, satiation of hunger, and potential exposure to toxic compounds to name but a few of its detrimental effects.
This study highlights that garbage generated by human activities on land clearly impacts ocean ecosystems thousands of miles away. And unfortunately there is no easy solution- each person must examine their footprint on the earth and how the lighter or bottle cap they toss into the trash can ultimately end up in the stomach of an albatross, thousands of miles away. Until we learn to do more with less, albatross and other marine animals will continue to dine on our garbage with as of yet unknown consequences.
Funding: LCY was funded by the Hawaii Conservation Alliance, the University of Hawaii Department of Zoology Jessie Kay Fellowship, and several Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology research awards as part of NSF grant DGE02-32016 to K.Y. Kaneshiro. SAS was supported in part by grants to the Tagging of Pacific Pelagics (TOPP) program from the Alfred P. Sloan, Gordon and Betty Moore, and David and Lucile Packard Foundations. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Journal reference:
Ropert-Coudert et al. Bringing Home the Trash: Do Colony-Based Differences in Foraging Distribution Lead to Increased Plastic Ingestion in Laysan Albatrosses? PLoS ONE, 2009; 4 (10): e7623 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007623
Adapted from materials provided by Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

'Lost seabird' returns to ocean

Up to eight Fiji petrels were seen over an 11-day periodOne of the world's rarest and most elusive birds has finally been seen flying in its natural habitat.The Fiji petrel, a seabird that once "went missing" for 130 years, has been sighted flying at sea, near the island of Gua in the Pacific Ocean. The culmination of a meticulously planned bird hunt, Birdlife International researchers sighted the birds 25 nautical miles south of Gua. Up to eight individuals were seen and photographed over 11 days. The 30cm tall dark-brown Fiji petrel (Pseudobulweria macgillivrayi) is one of the most elusive of all birds.To see such a little-known bird at such close range was magical Expedition member Mr Tony Pym Originally, the species was known from just a single immature specimen, collected in 1855 on Gau Island, Fiji. But then the bird "went missing" with no further confirmed sightings of it for almost 130 years. Then in 1984, an adult was caught and photographed on Gua, then released. Since then, there have been a handful of reports of "grounded" birds that had crashed onto village roofs on the island. Most were immature birds, of which a few died. Due to the extremely limited number of sightings, the bird is also inferred to be one of the rarest of all bird species. It is one of 192 bird species which are list as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Stinky lureBut while there have been ten unconfirmed reports of the bird at sea, with the latest a possible Fiji Petrel sighted around 400km north of Bougainville Island, until now there has been no confirmed sightings. That was until in May, when scientists and volunteers working with Birdlife International and NatureFiji-MareqetiViti, a partner conservation organisation based in Fiji, set out to find the bird in its natural habitat. The search for the elusive petrel is described in a paper in the latest Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. The researchers lured the bird with a specially made food, made from finely cut fish offal mixed with very dense fish oil.The Fiji petrel once "went missing" for 130 years These were then frozen into 10kg blocks, which persist for over an hour in the water, creating a pungent oil slick which attracts petrels from some miles away. On the second day of the expedition, the first Fiji Petrel appeared, approaching the chum slick from downwind, slowly zigzagging over the slick, and suddenly changing direction to drop onto a floating morsel. In all, the expedition team believe they saw eight individuals over eleven days of observations. "Finding this bird and capturing such images was a fantastic and exhilarating experience," says ornithologist Hadoram Shirihai, who lead the search team. In 2008, Mr Shirihai also rediscovered the Critically Endangered Beck's Petrel (Pseudobulweria becki) a bird that was also only known from two sightings in the Pacific made in the 1920s. "To see such a little-known bird at such close range was magical," added fellow expedition member Mr Tony Pym, describing his joy at seeing the Fiji petrel flying over the waves. More surveys in 2010 are now planned to to locate the breeding area of the Fiji Petrel, says Dick Watling of NatureFiji-MareqetiViti. "Once we know the location, we can assess what needs to be done to turn around the fortunes of this species," he says. by Matt Walker Editor, Earth News BBC

Puffin Muffin saved from attack

The puffin has been named Muffin by his rescuers.A puffin is being nursed back to health after being rescued during an attack by seagulls in Moray.The injured bird was rescued by Jennie and John Stewart as they walked their dog in Lossiemouth. They took the puffin, which they named Muffin, home and have been giving him cold baths and feeding him. It is thought the puffin may have been in Lossiemouth after being blown off course. He will be released once back to full strength. 'Running about'Mrs Stewart said the puffin looked stressed when they saved him, and they took him back home wrapped in a scarf. Her husband told the BBC Scotland news website that Puffin was being attacked when they discovered him. He said: "We think the puffin was overcome by storms and was being attacked. It was timely that we found him. "He was quite feisty to start with but is now feeding well. "He is now running about and flapping his wing. He will be released when ready, he would perish otherwise." BBC

FWC to beachgoers: Do not disturb nesting birds

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reminds beachgoers statewide to be mindful of nesting birds. The eggs and chicks of nesting birds are delicate and susceptible to harm from disturbances that cause adults to fly off the nests. "Just approaching a bird is enough to flush it away from its nest," said Ricardo Zambrano, an FWC biologist. "When birds fly off their eggs, it exposes the chicks to predators." Injuries to unprotected eggs or chicks can happen quickly, either from predators or even from the intense heat of direct sunlight. Sun worshipers can help protect the birds by moving parties, picnics or fireworks away from nesting areas. This time of year, a variety of protected birds nest on Florida's beaches, including terns, black skimmers, snowy plovers and Wilson's plovers. The FWC and other agencies posted signs earlier this year around many nesting areas on Florida's beaches. These closed areas protect nesting birds from unnecessary disturbances and prevent humans from stepping on their nests. All of these species nest in the open and lay well-camouflaged eggs directly on the sand, making them nearly invisible to predators and to the untrained human eye. "We need the public's help in protecting these spectacular birds while enjoying the beach," Zambrano said. "Beach-nesting birds are part of Florida's unique natural heritage."

In Chile, the birds are dying, and no one knows why

Chilean scientists are investigating three mysterious ecological disasters that have caused the deaths of hundreds of penguins, millions of sardines and about 2,000 baby flamingos in the past few months.The events started to unfold in March, when the remains of about 1,200 penguins were found on a remote beach in southern Chile. Then came the sardines -- tons of them -- dead and washed up on a nearby stretch of coastline. The stench forced nearby schools to close, and the army was called in to shovel piles of rotting fish off the sand.Farther north, thousands of rare Andean flamingos abandoned their nests on a salt lake in the Atacama Desert. The eggs failed to hatch and, over a period of three months, all 2,000 chicks died. The extent of the damage was discovered in April, during an inspection.

Birds die in unsecured fishing net

Shakespear Park rangers had to pick up 166 dead birds in a set-net last weekend.More than 100 dead birds in a washed-up set-net were found by Shakespear Regional Park visitors last weekend. Duty ranger Steve Burgess was notified of the nets strewn across the park's popular sandy beach Te Haruhi Bay."Tangled in the net were 166 seabirds and 11 kahawai," Mr Burgess says."The birds, which were fluttering shearwaters, were either already dead or close to dying when found and we have had to dispose of them."Dealing with such a significant kill of native wildlife is not a fun task for those of us working on the park, and it can be quite distressing for visitors," he says.Principal ranger Mathew Vujcich says his team alerted the Conservation Department and the Fisheries Ministry. He hopes it does not happen again."This net had no identification and was insecurely anchored," he says.The Auckland Regional Council is appealing to set-netters to act responsibly and follow the set-net code of practice.Set-nets are common on the region's east coast, and poor netting practices can catch seabirds or marine mammals.Poor netting can result in fish wastage, unwanted fish species caught, and lost nets that continue to fish and catch wildlife, like the one found at Shakespear.A set-net ban applies at Arkles Bay on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and may be extended to other areas if set-netters continue to flout rules.Editor Geoff Dobson and eldest son Eli hit a set-net strung across part of Te Haruhi Bay this summer while snorkelling out to a shipwreck off the bay's eastern point.Set-net codeA set-net code of practice includes:• Any net or nets used either individually or jointly must not extend more than a quarter of the way across any bay, channel, river, stream or sound•Nets must not be set in a way that causes fish to be stranded by the falling tide• The use of stakes to secure nets is prohibited•Each end of a net must have a surface buoy permanently and legibly marked with the fisher's initials and surname• Set-nets must not exceed 60 metres in length•Only one set net up to 60 metres and one bait net up to 10 metres, with a mesh size of 50mm or less, can be carried on a boat at any one time• Nets must not be set within 60 metres of another net. By CARALISE MOORE

Ecosystem Gone Haywire: Cape Gannet Bird Threatened With Extinction

The ecosystem of the Cape Gannet, a protected bird species, has gone haywire. As a result of overfishing, the birds are no longer able to find enough food to rear their young. Pelicans, kelp gulls and seals are becoming increasing threats – the lack of fish means that these predators are attacking Cape Gannet chicks more often.This has been revealed by research conducted by biologist Ralf Mullers. He will be awarded a PhD by the University of Groningen on 4 May 2009.The Cape Gannet (Morus capensis) is a member of the same family as the pelican. The birds can grow to almost a metre and have a wingspan of nearly two metres. There are only six breeding colonies in the world – three in Namibia and three in South Africa. Since the 1960s, the number of breeding pairs in the colonies in Namibia has been decreasing due to overfishing of sardines and anchovies. In the last ten years, the breeding colonies on the west coast of South Africa have also been getting smaller. This is partly because the schools of anchovies and sardines have moved to the south and east coasts of South Africa.Birds with GPSFor his research, Mullers spent four six-month sessions on the uninhabited islands of Ichaboe (Namibia) and Malgas (South Africa). Here he studied chick development, mapped the parents' behaviour and researched the links between these variables. No fewer than 646 adult gannets were fitted with a GPS logger. This meant that the position of the birds could be precisely followed from minute to minute and it became clear whether they were flying, bobbing up and down on the waves or diving. Never before has the feeding behaviour of the Cape Gannet been so minutely detailed. It turns out that a Cape Gannet flies about 450 kilometres a day in search of food.Destructive pelicansThe decline in the colony on Malgas is due to the dangers the chicks are exposed to, Mullers discovered. Among other things, pelicans are a particular threat. These birds originally only ate fish, but due to the lack of fish they've become accustomed to eating other birds. They've also learnt to eat slaughterhouse waste, present in large amounts at neighbouring pig farms. Mullers: `Pelicans are originally protected birds too. Now one protected bird species needs to be protected against another one. On Malgas you can see entire colonies of gannets being destroyed by pelicans – they can even swallow chicks weighing almost two kilos.'Longer flightsOn Ichaboe (Namibia) chicks have a greater chance of survival. Although their parents have to fly further for food than the Malgas parents, they return with better quality food. Whereas the Malgas parents mainly bring fish waste back to their chicks, those on Ichaboe bring back more mackerel and pike to replace the anchovies and sardines. There are also fewer predators like pelicans, kelp gulls and seals on Ichaboe. It's not yet completely clear why the colonies on this island are also declining in size.Selfish parentsMullers' research has revealed that parents do not risk their own lives to save those of their young. If there is less food available, they do not make longer foraging flights to ensure their young have enough to eat. Mullers: `From an evolutionary point of view that's very sensible. A gannet can live to be twenty-five. If its chicks don't survive one year, it has many more chances to produce descendents. It's not going to risk those chances. It would be interesting to investigate whether the birds will adjust their behaviour if there is too little food for several years in a row.'Fishing quotas neededIf extinction of the gannet is to be prevented, its foraging ranges must be protected. In other words, there must be a limit on the number of sardines and anchovies caught in the bird's foraging range. Mullers: `There are naturally major economic interests involved. It would be great if my research could contribute to the debate on this matter.'

MP takes tough line to save birds, dolphins

New measures that could stop threatened albatross, petrel and dolphins being snared by fishermen could be before Parliament next week.Green MP Metiria Turei has drafted a private member's bill that would increase protection for marine animals by requiring a more cautious approach to setting fishing quotas and rules.She said the bill could mean tougher requirements for fishing boats to stay away from areas that harbour rare Hector's and Maui's dolphins.It could also result in more demands on the fishing industry to make fishing lines less attractive to seabirds.Fishing bycatch was one of the major threats to seabirds identified in a Department of Conservation report on endangered birds this month. A 2004 DoC report found 13 albatross and seven petrel species were threatened by fishing, especially commercial longline fishing and trawl nets.Fishing is the greatest known threat to rare Hector's and Maui's dolphins.Peter Dawson, chief executive of the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen, said the fishing industry was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year finding new ways to avoid catching birds, seals and dolphins.A new sinker system to get longlines below the surface quickly, before bait caught the eyes of birds, was showing promise. Bird scaring devices on trawlers were also working well. "It is not fair to say we're ignoring the issue." Mr Dawson said developing new methods was difficult as there were many different fisheries and measures had to be designed without compromising fishermen's safety. Mrs Turei said she hoped the bill would increase use of technology such as streamer lines - decoy ropes dangling brightly coloured plastic streamers that distract birds from becoming caught in fishing lines.Albatross are vulnerable to longlines because they dive beneath the surface for baits and hooks while the lines are being set. As the fishing lines are reeled out behind the vessel, the birds are dragged to the depths where they drown.Ms Turei said albatross took a long time to breed and produced very few chicks.DoC marine conservation manager Simon Banks said the department supported any measures that reduced by-catch of sea birds, and had been working with the fishing industry to develop techniques. About 372 white-capped albatross were killed by fishing in 2004-2007. Part of the DoC programme was getting observers on a broader range of fishing boats. Last May, the Government announced measures to protect Hector's and Maui's dolphins, including marine mammal sanctuaries and bans on set netting in the coastal waters where the dolphins are most often found.Commercial fishing companies have legally challenged those measures, and an injunction is in place so set net fishing can continue in some areas where the dolphins are found, until the case is heard. The High Court would rule on the new dolphin protections in June.The coastline and islands of New Zealand are important breeding grounds for more than 20 species of seabird that breed nowhere else.The Marine Mammals Protection Act Amendment Bill will go into the next Parliamentary ballot for a chance to be debated by MPs.NZH

Masses of waterbirds flock to inland sea

TENS of thousands of waterbirds have flocked to nest on the floodplains of southwest Queensland to take advantage of what experts describe as the best conditions in 20 years.Many more will be arriving soon at Lake Eyre in South Australia as it fills with floodwaters from Queensland rivers. At Lake Machattie north of Birdsville this week, an estimated 30,000 pelicans massed on two sand bars, tending eggs and chicks of varying sizes. Simpson Desert National Park indigenous ranger Don Rowlands said the extent of waterbird nesting on the floodplains of Eyre Creek and the Georgina and Diamantina rivers was the greatest in memory. "We've just been through the biggest drought in whitefella history and now we've got one of the biggest floods ever," Mr Rowlands said. "The birdlife is unreal. There's an explosion of thousands and thousands of birds of many different species, and they're all over the place." Mr Rowlands said the pelican colonies were particularly impressive. "It's a sight to behold to be amongst this great mass of pelicans, a once-in-a-lifetime experience." Mr Rowlands said 80,000 ibis had gathered to nest at one colony. Numerous ducks, spoonbills, egrets, cormorants and other waterbirds were taking advantage of the floodwaters to breed. University of NSW waterbird expert Richard Kingsford said that in addition to the southwest Queensland colonies, tens of thousands of pelicans and banded stilts would soon be heading from all over Australia to Lake Eyre to nest. Professor Kingsford said the waterbird breeding event in Lake Eyre was shaping as the biggest in 20 years. "These flood-related events are becoming more and more critical to the survival of waterbirds," he said. "A combination of drought and the over-allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin for irrigation has deprived waterbirds of nesting opportunities." Professor Kingsford said how waterbirds knew when and where to head inland remained a mystery, but the landscape was probably imprinted on them when they hatched there. Annual nestings of species such as the straw-neck ibis and royal spoonbill in locations such as the Macquarie marshes in NSW no longer took place because the water had been diverted to irrigators. "Without occasional floodings of the type we are seeing now in western Queensland, the future of many of these species would not be assured," Professor Kingsford said. Diamantina Shire Mayor Robbie Dare said much of the shire's 96,000sqkm had been under water at some time this wet season, with up to 300mm of rain falling over several weeks and storms continuing. "People were really on their knees with the drought and now they've got a spring in their step," he said. Mr Dare said vast areas that had been bare earth for years were now meadows of lush grass. "It was so bad we were losing trees, and even the spinifex on the sand dunes was dying. Now we've got enough cattle feed for a couple of years." Major roads in the shire remained cut this week. Mr Dare said locals were looking forward to a boom in tourism as people travelled to the region to see the waterbirds and the verdant desert.The Australian

Hungry whales steal birds' dinner

The birds' bait ball becomes a bite-sized snack for a hungry humpbackHumpback whales have come up with a novel way for getting an easy snack - stealing birds' dinners. A BBC crew filmed seabirds carefully corralling unwieldy shoals of herring into tightly packed "bait balls" from which the fish are easy to pluck. But they discovered that passing whales would wait for the birds to complete their hard graft before devouring the ball of fish in a single gulp. The team said this was the first time they had seen this behaviour. The footage, filmed off the coast of North America, forms part of the BBC wildlife series Nature's Great Events: The Great Feast. Fish banquet The team witnessed the whales' crafty behaviour as they set up to film vast shoals of herring as they gathered to feed on plankton blooms. The whale came in and scooped up the whole thing in pretty much one gulp - mouth open, whoosh, and the whole thing was gone Joe Stevens, producer While the fish feast, diving birds also congregate, eyeing an opportunity for their own fishy banquet. Joe Stevens, a producer on the programme, said: "Murres (a type of guillemot) dive under the shoal and whittle it down into a ball of fish, using the surface of the water to contain it. They dart around it, picking off the fish. "Other seabirds like gulls then come in to get bits of the bait balls." But while the team expected to capture this spectacle on camera, they were unprepared for what came next. Mr Stevens explained: "We had a cameraman in the water - and we started to notice lots of whales. "And we thought: 'What would happen if the whales got interested in these balls of fish?' And then the whales did get interested. Humpbacks migrate from Hawaii to reach the fish feast "One came in and scooped up the whole thing in pretty much one gulp - mouth open, whoosh, and the whole thing was gone." It was a bit of a shock for the underwater cameraman, he added. Mr Stevens said the crew witnessed the humpbacks scoffing the bite-sized bait balls several times. He said: "It was like the whales had noticed what the birds were doing, and let the birds do all the hard work of creating the balls of fish so they could then come in to scoop them up." He added: "You have to take your hat off to them - it is when you see them doing things like that, you realise that they are really very very clever and that they are aware of their environment and what is going on."

Tags reveal birds' ocean odyssey

The data offered an insight in to unknown behaviour of Manx shearwatersElectronic tags have offered an insight into the mysteries of the 20,000km migration of Manx shearwaters. A team of UK scientists found that the birds made regular "stopovers" lasting up to two weeks, probably to feed and replenish their energy reserves. The data was recovered from logging tags fitted to six breeding pairs of Puffinus puffinus from Skomer Island, off the coast of Wales. The findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Every one of the 12 birds made at least one stop during its migration in one place for up to two weeks," observed co-author Tim Guilford of the Animal Behaviour Research Group at the University of Oxford. "We have interpreted this as being stopover behaviour because this is common in terrestrial migrant birds; essentially, they stop to refuel," he told BBC News. But, he added, sea birds that migrated over open seas did not normally display this behaviour because, unlike terrestrial species, they were not able to return to the same feeding spot each year. However, in the case of the tagged Manx shearwaters, a small bird weighing about 400g, they appeared to have adopted the same behaviour as it offered the "optimal migration strategy". Professor Guilford suggested that the birds were more likely to survive if they made a series of regular stops rather than flying directly to South America. "If they flew directly, they would have to have a larger fat reserve in order to make the journey," he explained. "They could do that, but on the other hand that would mean the bird would be flying the first part of the migration weighing more than it needed to. "It is a complex trade-off between the aerodynamics of long distance flight and the risks and time constraints of having to stop and refuel. Ringing true Professor Guilford said the data did not throw up too many surprises as far as the birds' migratory route was concerned. All 12 birds fitted with the tags returned to the UK breeding site "The route that they took was very broadly consistent with what people using more traditional methods, such as ringing, thought they had taken. "It is gratifying that these techniques, which have been the mainstay of our understanding of avian migration for so long, turn out to be broadly correct." However, he added that the data from the tags did reveal a few differences. "They go a little bit further south than we expected, but that was probably the result that human settlements were much more sparse, where there were fewer people to recover the rings." The team used two different kinds of logging tags, both of which were designed and made by the British Antarctic Survey."They are very similar except that one is a slightly more recent version, which records contact with salt water," Professor Guilford explained. "This allowed us to know whether the bird was sat on the water or diving, or whether it was flying." By combining the two data sets (location and flight/stationary), the researchers were able to work out the birds' migration pattern and behaviour en route. Seven of the tags could record when the bird was in salt water Rather than using a satellite tag, which beams the data back almost straight away, the team opted for a "logging device" that stored the information until it was physically retrieved from the bird. "This is the slightly nerve-wracking side of things," he admitted. "The primary benefit is that they are much smaller than devices that transmit." All of the tagged birds returned to the UK breeding site, which suggested that the tags did not inhibit them during their seven-month migration. "We have gone to great lengths to try and minimise the impact of our devices," said Professor Guilford. Although the Manx shearwater, as a species, is not under threat, he added that the findings helped improve our understanding of what was happening in the world's seas and oceans. "Although they are doing very well, they are still limited to big but compact populations on islands, which are very vulnerable to predators etc," he explained. "So it is nice to say that we can now begin to understand what these birds depend upon in terms of resources on land, and now at sea. "We won't be stopping with Manx shearwaters, we are beginning to put them on puffins as well." BBC News

Snowy Owl -- A Marine Species?

Wildlife satellite studies could lead to a radical re-thinking about how the snowy owl fits into the Northern ecosystem.

"Six of the adult females that we followed in a satellite study spent most of last winter far out on the Arctic sea ice," said Université Laval doctoral student Jean-Francois Therrien, who is working with Professor Gilles Gauthier as part of an International Polar Year (IPY) research project to better understand key indicator species of Canadian northern ecosystems.

The finding flabbergasted the biologists who are now curious to find out if Inuit seal hunters ever encounter the large white birds on the ice in winter darkness.

"As for what the birds were doing there, they were possibly preying on seabirds," said Gauthier. "Bird researchers at coastal field sites have observed snowy owls attacking eiders in winter. This hypothesis will be strengthened if we can match up the locations of our birds with the position of open water leads in the ice as recorded by other satellite data."

The researchers find it intriguing that the top Arctic bird predator, like the top mammal – the polar bear, is also part of the marine ecosystem. The possible implications for the species will be discussed by Therrien this Wednesday in Quebec City at the Arctic Change Conference, one of the largest international research conferences ever held on the challenges facing the north.

It was very surprising, said Therrien, how far the individual birds migrated from where they were banded on their nesting grounds on Bylot Island, north of Baffin Island.

"The satellite data showed just how dramatic the owl movements are. They flew huge distances. One owl went to Ellesmere Island, another flew straight to North Dakota and a third ended up on the eastern point of Newfoundland," he said.

The researchers say that this winter should provide many southern Canadians with a better than normal opportunity to see the magnificent birds.

"We had the largest abundance of lemmings in many years in our study area this past summer," said Gauthier. "The owls had no problems raising young, so we were informally predicting a strong outward movement of young owls this winter."

And indeed, judging by numerous newspaper reports and naturalist sightings, that prediction has already come true.

In fact, if anyone has a really ingenious idea to keep them away from airports, there is at least one airport authority that would like to hear from you. One owl-plane collision has already been reported this year at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport in Dorval.

"The support from IPY and NSERC and the advances in satellite technology have given a huge impetus to what promises to be a revolution in our understanding of this key northern species," said Gauthier. That knowledge can't come soon enough, the two researchers said.

Jean-Francois Therrien's presentation "Reproductive success and long-distance movements of snowy owls: Is this top predator vulnerable to climate change" took place at the Arctic Change Conference in Quebec City on December 10.

Therrien received an NSERC Northern Internship for his work, which was also conducted as part of the NSERC IPY ArcticWOLVES project based out of Université Laval. Arctic WOLVES stands for Arctic Wildlife Observatories Linking Vulnerable Ecosystems.

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Adapted from materials provided by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Mother Of A Goose! Giant Ocean-going Geese With Bony-teeth Once Roamed Across SE England

A 50 million year old skull reveals that huge birds with a 5 metre wingspan once skimmed across the waters that covered what is now London, Essex and Kent. These giant ocean-going relatives of ducks and geese also had a rather bizarre attribute for a bird: their beaks were lined with bony-teeth.


It may be a few weeks until the British pantomine season kicks-off, but this new fossil from the Isle of Sheppey is giving ‘Mother Goose’ an entirely new meaning. Described today (September 26) in the journal Palaeontology, the skull belongs to Dasornis, a bony-toothed bird, or pelagornithid, and was discovered in the London Clay, which lies under much of London, Essex and northern Kent in SE England.

The occurrence of bony-toothed birds in these deposits has been known for a long time, but the new fossil is one the best skulls ever found, and preserves previously unknown details of the anatomy of these strange creatures.

With a five metre wingspan, these huge birds were similar to albatross in their way of life. Albatross have the largest wingspan of any living bird, but that of Dasornis was over a meter and half greater. Despite these similarities, the latest research suggests that the closest living relatives of Dasornis and its fossil kin are ducks and geese.

“Imagine a bird like an ocean-going goose, almost the size of a small plane! By today’s standards these were pretty bizarre animals, but perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they had sharp, tooth-like projections along the cutting edges of the beak” explains Gerald Mayr, expert palaeornithologist at the German Senckenberg Research Institute and author of the report.

Like all living birds Dasornis had a beak made of keratin, the same substance as our hair and fingernails, but it also had these bony ‘pseudo-teeth’ “No living birds have true teeth - which are made of enamel and dentine - because their distant ancestors did away with them more than 100 million years ago, probably to save weight and make flying easier. But the bony-toothed birds, like Dasornis, are unique among birds in that they reinvented tooth-like structures by evolving these bony spikes.”

So why did Dasornis have these pseudo-teeth? “Its linked to diet” says Mayr, “these birds probably skimmed across the surface of the sea, snapping up fish and squid on the wing. With only an ordinary beak these would have been difficult to keep hold of, and the pseudo-teeth evolved to prevent meals slipping away.”


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Journal reference:

Mayr et al. A skull of the giant bony-toothed bird Dasornis (Aves: Pelagornithidae) from the Lower Eocene of the Isle of Sheppey. Palaeontology, 2008; 51 (5): 1107 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00798.x
Adapted from materials provided by Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, via AlphaGalileo.

Recovering Gray Whale population could help Puget Sound's declining marine birds

Recently published research funded by the UC Davis SeaDoc Society suggests that growth in gray whale populations may have unexpected benefits for other marine animals in trouble, such as diving sea ducks.SeaDoc Society Director Joe Gaydos, based on Orcas Island, Washington, said the finding was made in 2006 by Eric Anderson and Jim Lovvorn of the University of Wyoming as they studied the feeding ecology of ducks called scoters. Theirs was one of $250,000 in research projects that SeaDoc supported that year.The researchers were observing a gray whale near Sandy Point on Whidbey Island, about 30 miles north of Seattle. Gray whales suction-feed, sieving out ghost shrimp and other small sea animals from the sea floor. As they eat, the whales create giant pits and stir up clouds of invertebrates, which settle back to the bottom and flourish in the altered landscape left after the whales have passed.In a paper published in the May 2008 Issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series, Lovvorn and Anderson said they watched as 125 sea ducks (surf scoters and white-winged scoters) flew to the gray whale and began diving in its tracks, about 300 feet behind, with a few ducks diving as a group barely 15 feet from the whale.It was the first documented observation of an association between cetaceans and birds that feed on the sea bottom.Anderson and Lovvorn suggest that such increases could enhance feeding opportunities for scoters and other bottom-feeding animals during the critical spring period, when typical food is less abundant and nutritional requirements needed to prepare for migration and reproduction are high.More than 60 other fish and wildlife species in the Puget Sound region are listed as threatened or endangered, or are candidates for listing, Gaydos said. "Usually we are trying to deal with endangered species eating other endangered species, so this evidence that the recovery of one species could benefit the recovery of other is a welcome breath of fresh air."The SeaDoc Society (www.seadocsociety.org) works to ensure the health of marine wildlife and their ecosystems through science and education. A program of the Wildlife Health Center at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), the SeaDoc Society has a regional focus on improving the health of the Salish Sea.