An Experimental Study of Social Attraction in Two Species of Storm-Petrel by Acoustic and Olfactory Cues

Abstract

Abstract. Many birds, notably colonial nesting seabirds, use public information (the visual, auditory, and olfactory presence of breeding conspecifics) when selecting nesting habitat. When colonies are extirpated, social cues that indicate nesting sites' quality are lost. In the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, storm-petrel populations were destroyed by introduced arctic foxes (Alopex lagopus) and have been slow to return after the foxes' eradication. We tested various social-attraction techniques as a method to encourage recolonization of Leach's (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) and Fork-tailed Storm-Petrels (O. furcata) in Ulva Cove at Amatignak, a former fox-farming island. We tested attraction to playback of each species' calls by broadcasting them in various patterns adjacent to a mist net and attraction to their odors with a T-maze design. We combined these two cues to test whether birds were more likely to enter and inhabit artificial burrows depending on playback and odor treatment. Both species of storm-petrel w...