Skip to main content
Publications | Persons | Institutes | Projects
[ report an error in this record ]basket (0): add | show Print this page

Climate-driven trophic cascades affecting seabirds around the British Isles
MacDonald, A.; Heath, M.R.; Edwards, M.; Furness, R.W.; Pinnegar, J.K.; Wanless, S.; Speirs, D.; Greenstreet, S.P.R. (2015). Climate-driven trophic cascades affecting seabirds around the British Isles, in: Hughes, R.N. et al. Oceanogr. Mar. Biol. Ann. Rev. 53. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 53: pp. 55-79. https://dx.doi.org/10.1201/b18733-3
In: Hughes, R.N. et al. (2015). Oceanogr. Mar. Biol. Ann. Rev. 53. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 53. CRC Press: Boca Raton. ISBN 978-1-4987-0545-5; e-ISBN 978-1-4987-0546-2. vii, 358 pp., more
In: Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review. Aberdeen University Press/Allen & Unwin: London. ISSN 0078-3218; e-ISSN 2154-9125, more
Peer reviewed article  

Available in  Authors 

Keywords
    Ammodytes marinus Raitt, 1934 [WoRMS]; Calanus finmarchicus (Gunnerus, 1770) [WoRMS]
    ANE, North Sea [Marine Regions]
    Marine/Coastal
Author keywords
    Pelagic food web; Trophic interactions; Seabird community; Regime shift

Authors  Top 
  • MacDonald, A.
  • Heath, M.R.
  • Edwards, M.
  • Furness, R.W.
  • Pinnegar, J.K.
  • Wanless, S., more
  • Speirs, D.
  • Greenstreet, S.P.R.

Abstract
    After flourishing during the second half of the twentieth century, many North Sea seabird populations are now in decline. Much evidence is accumulating that climate change is driving these negative trends in growth rate. Climate-driven changes in the physical environment may affect seabirds both directly and indirectly. Direct impacts such as increasingly common extreme weather events will result in negative physiological responses. However, climate effects on seabirds are more likely to be indirect and mediated by prey quality and availability. Mounting evidence suggests that climate impacts on lower trophic levels are altering the pathway of energy to seabirds. While the basis for changes in primary production are complex and uncertain, climate-driven changes in the availability of sandeels (primarily Ammodytes marinus) and the copepod Ca/anus finmarchicus, key prey species in adjacent trophic levels, appear to be causing a reduction in breeding success and growth rate in several British seabird species.

All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy Top | Authors