Invertebrate communities inhabiting nests of migrating passerine, wild fowl and sea birds breeding in the High Arctic, Svalbard

Abstract

Nests of birds often possess a diverse invertebrate fauna, but almost no descriptions of the invertebrate fauna of bird nests from the High Arctic exist in spite of numerous studies at lower latitudes. Seventy-seven nests belonging to common eider, barnacle goose, glaucous gull, black-legged kittiwake and snow bunting were examined for the invertebrate fauna from Kongsfjorden and Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Twenty-seven nest-living species were found and thirty-one species in soil under common eider nests. The diversity in most of the nests was poor. True nidiculous species were absent, and ectoparasites dominated in nests of all bird species; the flea; Ceratophyllus vagabundus vagabundus in the nests of common eider, barnacle goose and glaucous gull, Mioctenopsylla arctica arctica in the nests of black-legged kittiwake; and the parasitic mesostigmatid mite Dermanyssus hirundinis in the nests of snow bunting. The most diverse group in nests was opportunistic soil-living oribatid mites. If soil samples taken beneath common eider nests are included, five species or genera of invertebrates not previously recorded from Svalbard were found: Cyrtozetes sp., Liochthonius simplex (Acari: Oribatida), Protaphorura subuliginata (Collembola: Onychiuridae) and larvae of Parochlus kiefferi and Paralimnophyes sp. (Diptera: Chironomidae). Of these, Cyrtozetes sp. is probably an undescribed species. The chironomid larvae from black-legged kittiwake nests have probably been transported together with nest material. With the exception of the ectoparasites, little indicates that invertebrates preferentially exploit nests in Svalbard, as most species were free living and are normally common in soils.