COLONY AND POPULATION DYNAMICS OF BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES IN A HETEROGENEOUS ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Abstract Black-legged Kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) nest at 25 distinct colonies located throughout Prince William Sound that range in size from 7,000 pairs. Dramatic changes have occurred in the distribution of breeding birds among those colonies during the past few decades (1972–1997). Reproductive success data collected since 1985 confirm that individual colonies are habitat patches of varying quality in space and time. Even with such variation, predictability of habitat quality did occur in short- and long-term (≥3 year) intervals as indicated by significant (P < 0.05) relationships between current (t) and previous year's (t−1, t−2, etc.) reproductive success. Those circumstances provided suitable conditions for testing hypotheses concerning dispersal and recruitment strategies of a long-lived species. Breeding birds responded to both short- and long-term cues and, in general, recruited to the most successful colonies. An apparently lower dispersal propensity and the importance of long-term cu...