Complete breeding failures in ivory gull following unusual rainy storms in North Greenland

[knocker]

 

Abstract

Natural catastrophic events such as heavy rainfall and windstorms may induce drastic decreases in breeding success of animal populations. We report the impacts of summer rainfalls on the reproductive success of ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea) in north-east Greenland. On two occasions, at Amdrup Land in July 2009 and at Station Nord in July 2011, we observed massive ivory gull breeding failures following violent rainfall and windstorms that hit the colonies. In each colony, all of the breeding birds abandoned their eggs or chicks during the storm. Juvenile mortality was close to 100% at Amdrup Land in 2009 and 100% at Station Nord in 2011. Our results show that strong winds associated with heavy rain directly affected the reproductive success of some Arctic bird species. Such extreme weather events may become more common with climate change and represent a new potential factor affecting ivory gull breeding success in the High Arctic.

 

http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/22749?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cryonews+%28CryoNews%29

[DAVID SNOW]

http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/22749?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Cryonews+%28CryoNews%29

 

Any news of possible recovery in numbers for 20122013?

[Crepuscular Ray]

Just depends on whether they get favourable breeding conditions, i.e. no storms, storm surges, etc., and moderate temperatures. Given that they tend to have only one chick a year, it will take some years to rebuild the colony, though.

[4wd]

Large birds like that live many years, it is not a disaster for the species to lose one year's offspring, and to be expected from time to time.

[Styx]

The muttonbird experiences a similar fate. It has been suggested that in recent decades the mortality rates have been increasing, due to the birds inadvertantly consuming plastic particles found in the ocean on their worldwide migrations, making them more susceptible to succumbing to exhaustion in wild weather conditions, as the plastics replace food in their belly.

[DAVID SNOW]

Large birds like that live many years, it is not a disaster for the species to lose one year's offspring, and to be expected from time to time.

 

My thoughts also.

[knocker]

Large birds like that live many years, it is not a disaster for the species to lose one year's offspring, and to be expected from time to time.

 

And naturally the scientists who wrote the paper aren't aware of this.

 

Read the discussion section of the paper.

 

 

My thoughts also.

Same answer.