Hierarchical foraging strategies of migratory short-tailed shearwaters during the non-breeding stage

Abstract

Foraging specialisations are common in animal populations, because they increase the rate at which individuals acquire food from a known and reliable source. Foraging plasticity, however, may also be important in variable or changing environments. To better understand how seabirds might respond to changing environmental conditions, we assessed how plastic the foraging behaviours of short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris) were during their non-breeding season. To do this, we tracked 60 birds using global location sensing loggers (GLS) over a single year between 2012 and 2016 with the exception of 8 individuals that were tracked over 2 consecutive years. Birds predominantly foraged in either the Sea of Okhotsk/North Pacific Ocean (Western strategy) or the southeast Bering Sea/North Pacific (Eastern strategy). The eight birds tracked for 2 consecutive years all returned to the same core areas, indicating that these birds were faithful to foraging areas between years, although the time spent there varied, probably in response to local changes in food availability. Overall, 50% of the birds we tracked left their core area towards the end of the non-breeding period, moving into the Chukchi Sea, suggesting that the birds have flexible intra-seasonal foraging strategies whereby they follow prey aggregations. We hypothesise that seasonal declines in chlorophyll a concentrations in their primary core foraging areas coincide with changes in the availability of large-bodied krill, an important food source for short-tailed shearwaters. Decreasing prey abundance likely prompts the movement of birds out of their core foraging areas in search of food elsewhere. This strategy, through which individuals initially return to familiar areas but disperse if food is limited, provides a mechanism that allows the birds to respond to the effects of climate variability.