(192) Phenological divergence, population connectivity and adaptation-by-time in two allochronic seabird populations. Frontiers in Marine Science
Medrano, F., T.Militão, I.Gomes, M.Sardá-Serra, M. de la Fuente, H.A.Dinis, J.González-Solís (2022)
Teaching.
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Marine
Sciences
DegreeAnthropogenic Impacts on the Marine Environment
[6 ECTS] Teaching Plan
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Grans Vertebrats Marins
[3 ECTS] Teaching Plan
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Master in
BiodiversityMecanismos Evolutivos del Comportamiento y Montaje de Comunidades
[6 ECTS]
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Master in
Oceanography
and Marine
Env. Manag.Biodiversidad de Aves Marinas
[3 ECTS] Teaching Plan
Topics.
Movement Ecology
Movement is a fundamental trait in animal life shaped by an infinity of ecological and evolutionary processes.
Conservation Biology
A major challenge in our world is the loss of biodiversity, and marine ecosystems and seabirds do not escape this tendency.
Symbiotic Interactions
The close and persistent association between two or more phylogenetically distant organisms is extraordinarily interesting from an evolutionary perspective.
Marine Environmental Chemistry
We live in a world where the chemical footprints of human activities reach the most remote and pristine places on the planet.
Most recent projects.
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2021-2024 Causes and implications of individual specialization in seabirds
Funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades.
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2020-2022 Minimising bycatch of seabirds and sea turtles in West African industrial fisheries
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2019-2023 ICREA Academia
Funded by Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA).
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2020-2022 Conserving the seabirds of Cabo Verde
Funded by MAVA Foundation and Coordinated by BirdLife International.
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2019-2020 Seabirds as a tool to improve fisheries and aquaculture management.
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2019-2020 The Audouin's gull as a tool to improve the management of Marine Protected Areas in the Spanish Levantine.
Funded by the Program for the Conservation of Marine Biodiversity of Fundación Biodiversidad.
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2017-2019 Seabirds as a tool for a dynamic managment of protected areas and fisheries
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2017-2019 Genomics of Conservation applied to the Balearic Shearwater
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2017-2019 Spanish network about marine debris
Acciones de dinamización Redes de Excelencia. Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad.
PI. Miquel Canals.
People.
Featured Publications.
(190) Methods to detect spatial biases in tracking studies caused by differential representativeness of individuals, populations, and time. Diversity and Distributions. In press.
Morera-Pujol, V., P.Catry, M.Magalhães, CV.Péron, J.M.Reyes-González, J.P.Granadeiro, T.Militão, M.P. Dias, D.Oro, G.Dell’Omo, M.Muller, V.H.Paiva, B.Metzger, V.Neves, J.Navarro, G.Karris, S.Xirouchakis, J.G.Cecere, A. Zamora-López, M.G.Forero, F.De Felipe, Z.Zajková, M.Cruz-Flores, D. Grémillet, J. González-Solís, R. Ramos (2022)
(189) Will climate change affect tropical and subtropical species? Predictions from Bulwer’s petrel populations across the NE Atlantic Ocean. Science of the Total Environment 847: 157352
Cruz-Flores, M., R.Pradel, J.Bried, T.Militão, V.C.Neves, J.González-Solís, R.Ramos (2022)
Climate change has repeatedly been shown to impact the demography and survival of marine top predators. However, most evidence comes from single populations of widely distributed species, limited mainly to polar and subpolar environments. Here, we aimed to evaluate the influence of environmental conditions on the survival of a tropical and migratory seabird over the course of its annual cycle. We used capture-mark-recapture data from three populations of Bulwer's petrel (Bulweria bulwerii) spread across the NE Atlantic Ocean, from the Azores, Canary, and Cabo Verde Islands (including temperate to tropical zones). We also inferred how the survival of this seabird might be affected under different climatic scenarios, defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the environmental variables whose effect we evaluated (North Atlantic Oscillation index, Southern Oscillation Index, Sea Surface Temperature [SST] and wind speed), SST estimated for the breeding area and season was the variable with the greatest influence on adult survival. Negative effects of SST increase emerged across the three populations, most likely through indirect trophic web interactions. Unfortunately, our study also shows that the survival of Bulwer's petrel will be profoundly affected by the different scenarios of climate change, even with the most optimistic trajectory involving the lowest greenhouse gas emission. Furthermore, for the first time, our study predicts stronger impacts of climate change on tropical populations than on subtropical and temperate ones. This result highlights the devastating effect that climate change may also have on tropical areas, and the importance of considering multi-population approaches when evaluating its impacts which may differ across species distributions
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(187) The first genome of the Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) provides a valuable resource for conservation genomics and sheds light on adaptation to a pelagic lifestyle. Genome Biology and Evolution 14: evac067.
Cuevas-Caballé, C., J.Ferrer-Obiol, J.Vizueta, M.Genovart, J.Gonzalez-Solís, M.Riutort, J.Rozas (2022)
The Balearic shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus) is the most threatened seabird in Europe and a member of the most speciose group of pelagic seabirds, the order Procellariiformes, which exhibit extreme adaptations to a pelagic lifestyle. The fossil record suggests that human colonisation of the Balearic Islands resulted in a sharp decrease of the Balearic shearwater population size. Currently, populations of the species continue to be decimated mainly due to predation by introduced mammals and bycatch in longline fisheries, with some studies predicting its extinction by 2070. Here, using a combination of short and long reads, we generate the first high-quality reference genome for the Balearic shearwater, with a completeness amongst the highest across available avian species. We used this reference genome to study critical aspects relevant to the conservation status of the species and to gain insights into the adaptation to a pelagic lifestyle of the order Procellariiformes. We detected relatively high levels of genome-wide heterozygosity in the Balearic shearwater despite its reduced population size. However, the reconstruction of its historical demography uncovered an abrupt population decline potentially linked to a reduction of the neritic zone during the Penultimate Glacial Period (~194–135 ka). Comparative genomics analyses uncover a set of candidate genes that may have played an important role into the adaptation to a pelagic lifestyle of Procellariiformes, including those for the enhancement of fishing capabilities, night vision, and the development of natriuresis. The reference genome obtained will be the crucial in the future development of genetic tools in conservation efforts for this Critically Endangered species.
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(186) High individual repeatability of the migratory behaviour of a long-distance migratory seabird. Movement Ecology 10: 5.
Kürten, N., H.Schmaljohann, C.Bichet, B.Haest, O.Vedder, J.González-Solís, S.Bouwhuis (2022)
Understanding the evolution of migration requires knowledge of the patterns, sources, and consequences of variation in migratory behaviour, a need exacerbated by the fact that many migratory species show rapid population declines and require knowledge-based conservation measures. We therefore need detailed knowledge on the spatial and temporal distribution of individuals across their annual cycle, and quantify how the spatial and temporal components of migratory behaviour vary within and among individuals. We tracked 138 migratory journeys undertaken by 64 adult common terns (Sterna hirundo) from a breeding colony in northwest Germany to identify the annual spatiotemporal distribution of these birds and to evaluate the individual repeatability of eleven traits describing their migratory behaviour. Birds left the breeding colony early September, then moved south along the East Atlantic Flyway. Wintering areas were reached mid-September and located at the west and south coasts of West Africa as well as the coasts of Namibia and South Africa. Birds left their wintering areas late March and reached the breeding colony mid-April. The timing, total duration and total distance of migration, as well as the location of individual wintering areas, were moderately to highly repeatable within individuals (repeatability indexes: 0.36–0.75, 0.65–0.66, 0.93–0.94, and 0.98–1.00, respectively), and repeatability estimates were not strongly affected by population-level inter-annual variation in migratory behaviour. We found large between-individual variation in common tern annual spatiotemporal distribution and strong individual repeatability of several aspects of their migratory behaviour.
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(183) Double-tagging scores of seabirds reveals that light-level geolocator accuracy is limited by species idiosyncrasies and equatorial solar profiles. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 12: 2243–2255.
Halpin, L.R., J.D.Ross, R.Ramos, R.Mott, N.Carlile, N.Golding, J.M.Reyes-González, T.Militão, F. De Felipe, Z.Zajková, M.Cruz-Flores, S.Saldanha, V.Morera-Pujol, L.Navarro-Herrero, L.Zango, J.González-Solís, R.H.Clarke (2021)
Light-level geolocators are popular bio-logging tools, with advantageous sizes, longevity and affordability. Biologists tracking seabirds often presume geolocator spatial accuracies between 186 and 202 km from previously innovative, yet taxonomically, spatially and computationally limited, studies. Using recently developed methods, we investigated whether assumed uncertainty norms held across a larger-scale, multispecies study. We field-tested geolocator spatial accuracy by synchronously deploying these with GPS loggers on scores of seabirds across five species and 11 Mediterranean Sea, east Atlantic and south Pacific breeding colonies. We first interpolated geolocations using the geolocation package FLightR without prior knowledge of GPS tracked routes. We likewise applied another package, probGLS, additionally testing whether sea-surface temperatures could improve route accuracy. Geolocator spatial accuracy was lower than the ~200 km often assumed. probGLS produced the best accuracy (mean ± SD = 304 ± 413 km, n = 185 deployments) with 84.5% of GPS-derived latitudes and 88.8% of longitudes falling within resulting uncertainty estimates. FLightR produced lower spatial accuracy (408 ± 473 km, n = 171 deployments) with 38.6% of GPS-derived latitudes and 23.7% of longitudes within package-specific uncertainty estimates. Expected inter-twilight period (from GPS position and date) was the strongest predictor of accuracy, with increasingly equatorial solar profiles (i.e. closer temporally to equinoxes and/or spatially to the Equator) inducing more error. Individuals, species and geolocator model also significantly affected accuracy, while the impact of distance travelled between successive twilights depended on the geolocation package. Geolocation accuracy is not uniform among seabird species and can be considerably lower than assumed. Individual idiosyncrasies and spatiotemporal dynamics (i.e. shallower inter-twilight shifts by date and latitude) mean that practitioners should exercise greater caution in interpreting geolocator data and avoid universal uncertainty estimates. We provide a function capable of estimating relative accuracy of positions based on geolocator-observed inter-twilight period.
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(181) The summer distribution, habitat associations and abundance of seabirds in the sub-polar frontal zone of the Northwest Atlantic. Progress in Oceanography 198: 102675
Wakefield, E.D., D.L.Miller, S.L.Bond, F. le Bouard, P.C.Carvalho, P.Catry, B.J.Dilley, D.A.Fifield, C.Gjerdrum, J.González-Solís, H.Hogan, V.Laptikhovsky, B.Merkel, J.A.O.Miller, P.I.Miller, S.J.Pinder, T.Pipa, P.M.Ryan, L.A.Thompson, P.M.Thompson and J.Matthiopoulos (2021)
Biological production in the oceanic zone (i.e. waters beyond the continental shelves) is typically spatially patchy and strongly seasonal. In response, seabirds have adapted to move rapidly within and between ocean basins, making them important pelagic consumers. Studies in the Pacific, Southern and Indian Oceans have shown that seabirds are relatively abundant in major frontal systems, with species composition varying by water mass. In contrast, surprisingly little was known about seabird distribution in the oceanic North Atlantic until recent tracking showed that relative abundance and diversity peak in the Sub-polar Frontal Zone, west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, now proposed as a Marine Protected Area. However, absolute seabird abundance, distribution, age and species composition, and their potential environmental drivers in the oceanic temperate NW Atlantic remain largely unknown. Consequently, we systematically surveyed seabirds and environmental conditions across this area by ship in June 2017, then modelled the density of common species as functions of environmental covariates, validating model predictions against independent tracking data. Medium-sized petrels (99.8%), especially Great Shearwaters (Ardenna gravis, 63%), accounted for the majority of total avian biomass, which correlated at the macroscale with net primary production and peaked at the sub-polar front. At the mesoscale, the density of each species was associated with sea surface temperature, indicating zonation by water mass. Most species also exhibited scale-dependent associations with eddies and fronts. Approximately 51, 26, 23, 7 and 1 % of the currently estimated Atlantic populations of Cory's Shearwaters (Calonectris borealis), Great Shearwaters, Sooty Shearwaters (A. grisea), Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) and Leach’s Storm-petrels (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) occurred in the area during our survey, many of which were undergoing moult (a vital maintena nce activity). For some species, these estimates are higher than suggested by tracking, probably due to the presence of immatures and birds from untracked populations. Our results support the conclusion that MPA status is warranted and provide a baseline against which future changes can be assessed. Moreover, they indicate potential drivers of seabird abundance and diversity in the oceanic zone of the North Atlantic that should be investigated further.
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(180) Multispecies tracking reveals a major seabird hotspot in the North Atlantic. Conservation Letters 14: e12824
Davies, T.E., A.P.B.Carneiro, M.Tarzia, E.Wakefield, J.Hennicke, M.Frederiksen, E.S.Hansen, B.Campos, C.Hazin, B.Lascelles, T.Anker-Nilssen, H.Arnardóttir, M.Biscoito, L.Bollache, T.Boulinier, P.Catry, F.R.Ceia, O.Chastel, S.Christensen-Dalsgaard, M.Cruz-Flores, J.Danielsen, F.Daunt, E.Dunn, C.Egevang, A.I.Fagundes, A.L.Fayet, J.Fort, R.W.Furness, O.Gilg, J.González-Solís, J.P.Granadeiro, D.Grémillet, T.Guilford, S.A.Hanssen, M.P.Harris, A.Hedd, N.P.Huffeldt, M.Jessopp, Y.Kolbeinsson, J.Krietsch, J.Lang, J.F.Linnebjerg, S-H Lorentsen, J.Madeiros, E.Magnusdottir, M.L.Mallory, L.M.Tranquilla, F.R.Merkel, T.Militão, B.Moe, W.A.Montevecchi, V.Morera-Pujol, A.Mosbech, V.Neves, M.A.Newell, B.Olsen, V.H.Paiva, H-U Peter, A.Petersen, R.A.Phillips, I.Ramírez, J.A.Ramos, R.Ramos, R.A.Ronconi, P.G.Ryan, N.M.Schmidt, I.A.Sigurðsson, B.Sittler, H.Steen, I.J.Stenhouse, H.Strøm, P.Thompson, T.L.Thórarinsson, R.S.A. van Bemmelen, S.Wanless, F.Zino, M.P.Dias (2021)
The conservation of migratory marine species, including pelagic seabirds, is challenging because their movements span vast distances frequently beyond national jurisdictions. Here, we aim to identify important aggregations of seabirds in the North Atlantic to inform ongoing regional conservation efforts. Using tracking, phenology, and population data, we mapped the abundance and diversity of 21 seabird species. This revealed a major hotspot associated with a discrete area of the subpolar frontal zone, used annually by 2.9–5 million seabirds from =56 colonies in the Atlantic: the first time this magnitude of seabird concentrations has been documented in the high seas. The hotspot is temporally stable and amenable to site-based conservation and is under consideration as a marine protected area by the OSPAR Commission. Protection could help mitigate current and future threats facing species in the area. Overall, our approach provides an exemplar data-driven pathway for future conservation efforts on the high seas.
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(178) Integrating Sequence Capture and Restriction Site-Associated DNA Sequencing to Resolve Recent Radiations of Pelagic Seabirds. Systematic Biology 70: 976-996.
Ferrer-Obiol, J., H.F.James, R.T.Chesser, V.Bretagnolle, J.González-Solís, J.Rozas, M.Riutort, A.J.Welch (2021)
The diversification of modern birds has been shaped by a number of radiations. Rapid diversification events make reconstructing the evolutionary relationships among taxa challenging due to the convoluted effects of incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and introgression. Phylogenomic data sets have the potential to detect patterns of phylogenetic incongruence, and to address their causes. However, the footprints of ILS and introgression on sequence data can vary between different phylogenomic markers at different phylogenetic scales depending on factors such as their evolutionary rates or their selection pressures. We show that combining phylogenomic markers that evolve at different rates, such as paired-end double-digest restriction site-associated DNA (PE-ddRAD) and ultraconserved elements (UCEs), allows a comprehensive exploration of the causes of phylogenetic discordance associated with short internodes at different timescales. We used thousands of UCE and PE-ddRAD markers to produce the first well-resolved phylogeny of shearwaters, a group of medium-sized pelagic seabirds that are among the most phylogenetically controversial and endangered bird groups. We found that phylogenomic conflict was mainly derived from high levels of ILS due to rapid speciation events. We also documented a case of introgression, despite the high philopatry of shearwaters to their breeding sites, which typically limits gene flow. We integrated state-of-the-art concatenated and coalescent-based approaches to expand on previous comparisons of UCE and RAD-Seq data sets for phylogenetics, divergence time estimation, and inference of introgression, and we propose a strategy to optimize RAD-Seq data for phylogenetic analyses. Our results highlight the usefulness of combining phylogenomic markers evolving at different rates to understand the causes of phylogenetic discordance at different timescales.
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(176) Global political responsibility for the conservation of albatrosses and large petrels. Science Advances 7: eabd7225
Beal, M., M.P.Dias, S.Oppel, R.A. Phillips, C.Hazin, E.Pearmain, J.Adams, D.J.Anderson, M.Antolos, J. A.Arata, J.M.Arcos, J.Arnould, J.Awkerman, E.Bell, M.Bell, M.Carey, R.Carle, T.A.Clay, J.Cleeland, V.Colodro, M.Conners, M.Cruz-Flores, R.Cuthbert, K.Delord, L.Deppe, B.J.Dilley, H.Dinis, G.Elliott, J.Felis, M.González-Forero, A.Freeman, A.Fukuda, J.M.Reyes-González, J.González-Solís, J.P.Granadeiro, A.Hedd, A.Jaeger, L.Navarro-Herrero, P.Hodum, J.M.Igual, T.J.Landers, M. Le Corre, A.Makhado, B.Metzger, T.Militão, W.A.Montevecchi, V.Morera-Pujol, D.Nel, D.Nicholls, D.Oro, R.Ouni, K.Ozaki, F. De Felipe, F.Quintana, R.Ramos, T.Reid, C.Robertson, G.Robertson, M.S.Romdhane, P.G.Ryan, P.Sagar, F.Sato, S.Schoombie, P.Scofield, S.Shaffer, N.J.Shah, K.L. Stevens, C.Surman, R.M.Suryan, A.Takahashi, V.Tatayah, G.Taylor, D.R.Thompson, L.Torres, K.Walker, R.Wanless, S.M.Waugh, H.Weimerskirch, T.Yamamoto, Z.Zajkova, L.Zango, P.Catry (2021)
Migratory marine species cross political borders and enter the high seas, where the lack of an effective global management framework for biodiversity leaves them vulnerable to threats. Here, we combine 10,108 tracks from 5775 individual birds at 87 sites with data on breeding population sizes to estimate the relative year-round importance of national jurisdictions and high seas areas for 39 species of albatrosses and large petrels. Populations from every country made extensive use of the high seas, indicating the stake each country has in the management of biodiversity in international waters. We quantified the links among national populations of these threatened seabirds and the regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) which regulate fishing in the high seas. This work makes explicit the relative responsibilities that each country and RFMO has for the management of shared biodiversity, providing invaluable information for the conservation and management of migratory species in the marine realm.
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(175) Sexual segregation in the foraging behaviour of a slightly dimorphic seabird: influence of the environment and fishery activity. Journal of Animal Ecology. 90: 1109-1121
Reyes-González, J.M., F. De Felipe, V.Morera-Pujol, A.Soriano-Redondo, L.Navarro-Herrero, L.Zango, S.García-Barcelona, R.Ramos, J.González-Solís. (2021)
Sexual segregation in foraging strategies has been little studied in marine species with slight Sexual Size Dimorphism (SSD), particularly regarding the role of environmental conditions and fishery activities. Sexual differences in fishery attendance are of particular concern, since uneven mortality associated to bycatch may exacerbate impacts in wildlife populations. Using a seabird species with slight SSD, the Scopoli’s shearwater (Calonectris diomedea), we assessed sexual differences in foraging strategies, and evaluated whether annual environmental conditions and fishery activity shaped such differences. We compared a four-year dataset combining bird GPS tracking, stable isotope analysis, the North-Atlantic Oscilation index (NAO, as main proxy of the annual environmental conditions), and fishing vessel positioning data (Vessel Monitoring System, VMS) from the North-Western Mediterranean, a region under intense fishery pressure. From 2012 to 2015, we tracked 635 foraging trips from 78 individual.Females showed a greater foraging effort, a lower fishery attendance, a lower trophic level and a narrower isotopic niche width than males. Moreover, in years with unfavourable environmental conditions, both sexes showed a lower fishery attendance and increased foraging effort compared to the year with most favourable conditions. Our results revealed that environmental conditions influence space use, feeding resources and fishery attendance differently between males and females, overall suggesting competitive exclusion of females by males from main foraging areas and feeding resources, particularly in unfavourable environmental conditions. We highlight the importance of evaluating sexual segregation under disparate environmental conditions, particularly in species with slight SSD, since segregation may pass otherwise unnoticed if only years with similar environmental conditions are considered. The higher fishery attendance of males likely explains the male-biased bycatch ratio for this species. Thus, inter-sexual differences in foraging strategies can lead to an unbalanced exposure of each sex to relevant threats for the conservation of long-lived species.
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(174) Densely sampling genomes across the diversity of birds increases power of comparative genomics analyses. Nature 587: 252–257
Feng, S., J.Stiller, Y.Deng, J.Armstrong, Q.Fang, A.H.Reeve, D.Xie, G.Chen, C.Guo, B.C.Faircloth, B.Petersen, Z.Wang, Q.Zhou, M.Diekhans, W.Chen, S.Andreu-Sánchez, A.Margaryan, J.T.Howard, C.Parent, G.Pacheco, M.S.Sinding, L.Puetz, E.Cavill, Â.M.Ribeiro, L.Eckhart, J.Fjeldså, P.A.Hosner, R.T.Brumfield, L.Christidis, M.F.Bertelsen, T.Sicheritz-Ponten, D.T.Tietze, B.C.Robertson, G.Song, G.Borgia, S.Claramunt, I.J.Lovette, S.J.Cowen, P.Njoroge, J.P.Dumbacher, O.A.Ryder, J.Fuchs, M.Bunce, D.W.Burt, J.Cracraft, G.Meng, S.J.Hackett, P.G. Ryan, K.A.Jønsson, I.G.Jamieson, R.R. da Fonseca, E.L.Braun, P.Houde, S.Mirarab, A.Suh, B.Hansson, S.Ponnikas, H.Sigeman, M.Stervander, P.B.Frandsen, H. van der Zwan, R. van der Sluis, C.Visser, C.N.Balakrishnan, A.G.Clark, J.W.Fitzpatrick, R.Bowman, N.Chen, A.Cloutier, T.B.Sackton, S.V.Edwards, D.J.Foote, S.B.Shakya, F.H.Sheldon, A.Vignal, A.E.R.Soares, B.Shapiro, J.González-Solís, J.Ferrer-Obiol, J.Rozas, M.Riutort, A.Tigano, V.Friesen, L.Dalén, A.O.Urrutia, T.Székely, Y.Liu, M.G.Campana, A.Corvelo, R.C.Fleischer, K.M.Rutherford, N.J.Gemmell, N.Dussex, H.Mouritsen, N.Thiele, K.Delmore, M.Liedvogel, A.Franke, M.P.Hoeppner, O.Krone, A.M.Fudickar, B.Milá, E.D.Ketterson, A.E.Fidler, G.Friis, Á.M.Parody-Merino, P.F.Battley, M.P.Cox, N.C.B.Lima, F.Prosdocimi, T.L.Parchman, B.A.Schlinger, B.A.Loiselle, J.G.Blake, H.C.Lim, L.B.Day, M.J.Fuxjager, M.W.Baldwin, M.J.Braun, M.Wirthlin, R.B.Dikow, T.B.Ryder, G.Camenisch, L.F.Keller, J.M.DaCosta, M.E.Hauber, M.I.M.Louder, C.C.Witt, J.A.McGuire, J.Mudge, L.C.Megna, M.D.Carling, B.Wang, S.A.Taylor, G.Del-Rio, A.Aleixo, A.T.R.Vasconcelos, C.V.Mello, J.T.Weir, D.Haussler, Q.Li, H.Yang, J.Wang, F.Lei, C.Rahbek, M.TP.Gilbert, G.R.Graves, E.D.Jarvis, B.Paten & G.Zhang (2020)
Whole-genome sequencing projects are increasingly populating the tree of life and characterizing biodiversity. Sparse taxon sampling has previously been proposed to confound phylogenetic inference5, and captures only a fraction of the genomic diversity. Here we report a substantial step towards the dense representation of avian phylogenetic and molecular diversity, by analysing 363 genomes from 92.4% of bird families—including 267 newly sequenced genomes produced for phase II of the Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project. We use this comparative genome dataset in combination with a pipeline that leverages a reference-free whole-genome alignment to identify orthologous regions in greater numbers than has previously been possible and to recognize genomic novelties in particular bird lineages. The densely sampled alignment provides a single-base-pair map of selection, has more than doubled the fraction of bases that are confidently predicted to be under conservation and reveals extensive patterns of weak selection in predominantly non-coding DNA. Our results demonstrate that increasing the diversity of genomes used in comparative studies can reveal more shared and lineage-specific variation, and improve the investigation of genomic characteristics. We anticipate that this genomic resource will offer new perspectives on evolutionary processes in cross-species comparative analyses and assist in efforts to conserve species.
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(167) Environmental versus individual effects on trophic ecology: a 17-year isotopic study of a long-lived seabird. Ecological Indicators 111: 105963.
Ramos, R., J.M.Reyes-González, V.Morera-Pujol, Z.Zajková, T.Militão, J.González-Solís (2020)
Despite its importance for ecology and conservation, we are still far from understanding how environmentalvariability interacts with intrinsic factors and individual specialization to determine trophic strategies of long-lived taxa, mostly due to difficulties in studying the same animals over extended periods. Here, by yearlyconsistently sampling thefirst primary feather of 99 Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) foraging in the Canary Current (CC) upwelling ecosystem, we provide robust evidence on the individual changes of isotopicratios of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) over 17 years. We reported a slight longitudinal decline of δ13C values throughout 2001–2017, even after being adjusted for the marine Suess effect (linked to the increasing CO2 emissions). Although CC is often considered to be overexploited by industrialfisheries, we could not detect adecline in Cory’s shearwater trophic level indicating a change in the trophic web structuring, as revealed by δ15N. We found negative correlations of δ13C and δ1515N with the CC upwelling intensity, indicating annualvariability in baseline isotopic levels propagates through the food chain and it integrates in predators’tissues.Low individual repeatabilities among years at population level indicates low long-term specialization, suggestinglong-lived individuals foraging on highly productive areas can adjust their foraging strategies and diet accordingto environmental variability. However, individual-level repeatabilities in isotopic values showed a range ofindividual specialization within the population, indicating most individuals are generalist and a few of themhighly specialized. First, although we found a clear influence of the upwelling intensity on the trophic ecology ofbirds, we could not detect any temporal trend in the trophic level of the Cory’s shearwater population, suggestinga stability in the structure of the pelagic food web of the CC over the last two decades despite thefishingpressure. Second, the existence of individual specialization highlights the importance of considering the repeatedsampling of individuals to detect small changes in the trophic ecology of a population. Finally, the coexistence ofindividuals with different degree of specialization (from extremely flexible [generalists] to highly consistent individuals [specialists] within a population can have deep implications on the capacity of populations to copewith environmental change.
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(159) Year-round individual specialization in the feeding ecology of a long-lived seabird. Scientific Reports 9: 11812.
Zango, L., J.M.Reyes-González, T.Militão, R.Ramos, Z.Zajková, E.Álvarez, J.González-Solís (2019)
Many generalist species are composed of individuals varying in the size of their realized niches within a population. To understand the underlying causes and implications of this phenomenon, repeated samplings on the same individuals subjected to different environmental conditions are needed. Here, we studied individual specialization of feeding strategies in breeding and nonbreeding grounds of Cory’s shearwaters (Calonectris borealis) for 2–8 years, and its relationship with fitness. Individuals were relatively flexible in nonbreeding destinations, but specialized in diet, habitat use and daily activity across years. Daily activity was also consistent throughout the year for the same individual, suggesting that it is driven by individual constraints, whereas individual diet and habitat use changed between breeding and non-breeding grounds, indicating that these specializations may be learned at each area. Moreover, individuals that were intermediate specialized in their diet tended to show higher breeding success than those with weakly and highly specialized diets, suggesting stabilizing selection. Overall, this study suggests that the development of individual specialization is more flexible than previously thought, i.e. it emerges under specific environmental conditions and can develop differently when environmental conditions vary. However, once established, individual specialization may compromise the ability of individuals to cope with environmental stochasticity.
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(150) Do humans spread zoonotic enteric bacteria in Antarctica? Science of the Total Environment 654:190-196.
Cerdà-Cuéllar, M.; E.Moré, T.Ayats, M.Aguilera, S.Muñoz, V.Aragón, P.G.Ryan, J.González-Solís (2019)
Reports of enteric bacteria in Antarctic wildlife have suggested its spread from people to seabirds and seals, but evidence is scarce and fragmentary. We investigated the occurrence of zoonotic enteric bacteria in seabirds across the Antarctic and subantarctic region; for comparison purposes, in addition to seabirds, poultry in a subantarctic island was also sampled. Three findings suggest reverse zoonosis from humans to seabirds: the detection of a zoonotic Salmonella serovar (ser. Enteritidis) and Campylobacter species (e.g. C. jejuni), typical of human infections; the resistance of C. lari isolates to ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin, antibiotics commonly used in human and veterinary medicine; and most importantly, the presence of C. jejuni genotypes mostly found in humans and domestic animals but rarely or never found in wild birds so far. We also show further spread of zoonotic agents among Antarctic wildlife is facilitated by substantial connectivity among populations of opportunistic seabirds, notably skuas (Stercorarius). Our results highlight the need for even stricter biosecurity measures to limit human impacts in Antarctica.
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(146) Costs of breeding are rapidly buffered and do not affect migratory behaviour in a long-lived bird species. Ecology. 99: 2010-2024.
Ramos, R., V. Llabrés, L. Monclús, M. López-Béjar, J.González-Solís (2018)
Life history theory states that individual fitness in one stage of life is conditioned by what occurred in previous stages. In migratory species, reproductive effort during breeding has often been found to influence body condition, molt schedule, self-provisioning and migration of individuals in subsequent seasons (i.e., carryover effects of breeding). However, there is a current uncertainty in understanding how long-distance migrants trade off among such energy-demanding activities (i.e., breeding, molting and migrating). To provide evidence to the field, we experimentally reduced the parental effort of a long-lived Procellariform, the Cory's shearwater (Calonectris borealis), by inducing failure at the incubation stage. Treatment and control birds were tracked during their subsequent migration by means of light-level and immersion loggers and sampled for six specific feathers (molted at different periods along the migratory cycle) upon the recovery of the loggers 1 yr later. Feathers were used to perform stable isotope analysis (SIA) and determine corticosterone levels (CORT). By these means, we evaluated the effect of breeding effort on migratory strategy, at-sea activity patterns, molt patterns, and levels of stress experienced by birds along the non-breeding period. We did not detect any difference between birds in the induced failure group and successful breeders in terms of spatio-temporal distribution: all birds shared common foraging areas throughout the study period and the timing of major phenological events did not differ. Failed birds significantly advanced their molt, as revealed by SIA and flying activity patterns. The stress levels of failed birds, inferred through CORT concentrations in feathers, were found to be consistently lower than in successful breeders, through the end of the breeding to the non-breeding period. Thus, we provide robust evidence that the costs of reproduction can be physiologically mediated from the breeding to the non-breeding period through molting schedules and CORT levels. However, we failed to detect clear effects on migratory behavior or subsequent breeding success, suggesting that costs of breeding in long-lived species may be rapidly buffered during the post-breeding period, as would be expected from life history theory.
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(140) Global phenological insensitivity to shifting ocean temperatures among seabirds. Nature Climate Change 8, 313-318.
Keogan, K., Daunt, F., Wanless, S., Phillips, R.A., Walling, C.A., Agnew, P., Ainley, D.G., Anker-Nilssen, T., Ballard, G., Barrett, R.T., Barton, K.J., Bech, C., Becker, P.H., Berglund, P.-A., Birkhead, T., Bollache, L., Bond, A.L., Bouwhuis, S., Bradley, R.W., Burr, Z.M., Camphuysen, K., Catry, P., Chiaradia, A., Christensen-Dalsgaard, S., Cuthbert, R., Dehnhard, N., Descamps, S., Diamon, T., Divoky, G., Drummond, H., Dugger, K.M., Dunn, M.J., Emmerson, L., Erikstad, K.E., Fort, J., Fraser, W., Gaston, A., Genovart, M., Gilg, O., González-Solís, J., Granadeiro, J.P., Gremillet, D., Hansen, J., Hanssen, S.A., Harris, M., Hedd, A., Hinke, J., Igual, J.M., Jahncke, J., Jones, I., Kappes, P.J., Lang, J., Langset, M., Lescroël, A., Lorentsen, S.-H., Lyver, P.O'B., Mallory, M., Moe, B., Montev (2018)
Reproductive timing in many taxa plays a key role in determining breeding productivity1, and is often sensitive to climatic conditions2. Current climate change may alter the timing of breeding at different rates across trophic levels, potentially resulting in temporal mismatch between the resource requirements of predators and their prey3. This is of particular concern for higher-trophic-level organisms, whose longer generation times confer a lower rate of evolutionary rescue than primary producers or consumers4. However, the disconnection between studies of ecological change in marine systems makes it difficult to detect general changes in the timing of reproduction5. Here, we use a comprehensive meta-analysis of 209 phenological time series from 145 breeding populations to show that, on average, seabird populations worldwide have not adjusted their breeding seasons over time (-0.020?days?yr-1) or in response to sea surface temperature (SST) (-0.272?days?°C-1) between 1952 and 2015. However, marked between-year variation in timing observed in resident species and some Pelecaniformes and Suliformes (cormorants, gannets and boobies) may imply that timing, in some cases, is affected by unmeasured environmental conditions. This limited temperature-mediated plasticity of reproductive timing in seabirds potentially makes these top predators highly vulnerable to future mismatch with lower-trophic-level resources.
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(115) Leapfrog migration and habitat preferences of a small oceanic seabird, Bulwer’s petrel (Bulweria bulwerii). Journal of Biogeography 42: 1651-1664.
Ramos, R., V.Sanz, T.Militão, J.Bried, V.C.Neves, M.Biscoito, R.A.Phillips, F.Zino and J.González-Solís (2015)
Our current understanding of migratory strategies and the reasons for
their high variability along the phylogenetic tree remains relatively poor. Most
of the hypotheses relating to migration have been formulated for terrestrial
taxa; classically, oceanic migrations were considered as merely dispersive
because of the scarcity of observations in the open ocean. We describe for the
?rst time, the migration strategy of a small seabird, the Bulwer’s petrel (Bulwe-
ria bulwerii), and provide new insights into the ecology and evolution of long-
distance marine migrations. Using cutting-edge geolocators, we examined the year-round distri-
bution and at-sea activity patterns of adult Bulwer’s petrels sampled at ?ve
localities throughout the species’ breeding range in the Atlantic, within the Azores,
Salvages, Canary and Cape Verde archipelagos. We assessed the migratory
connectivity of the species and its habitat use at population and metapopulation
scales. Our results provide the ?rst evidence of an oriented leapfrog migration
in oceanic seabirds. Ecological niche models based on breeding-season
data effectively predicted that subtropical waters of the South Atlantic would
be the preferred habitat for the northern populations of Bulwer’s petrels during
the non-breeding season. Habitat modelling also highlighted similarities in distributions
between the breeding and non-breeding periods for the southern
populations. Data on at-sea activity patterns suggested that birds from the
northern and southern populations behave differently during the breeding season,
as well as in the northern and southern non-breeding ranges during the
non-breeding period. nThese results indicate that speci?c habitat preferences, presumably
related to differences in prey availability, explain the observed distributions
and hence the pattern of leapfrog migration described for Bulwer’s
petrel. Our study demonstrates the utility of integrating diverse tracking data
from multiple populations across international boundaries, and habitat modelling,
for identifying important areas common to many marine species in the
vast oceanic environments.
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(100) Individual migratory patterns of two threatened seabirds using stable isotope and geolocation analyses. Diversity and Distributions 19:317-329
Militão, T., K.Bourgeois, J.L.Roscales, J.González-Solís (2013)
Aim: Intraspecific variability in the migratory movements of seabirds is being revealed far more complex than hitherto recognized, and our lack of understanding undermines their effective protection. Our aim is to test whether the isotopic values of a single feather of two threatened seabirds, the Mediterranean (Puffinus yelkouan) and the Balearic (Puffinus mauretanicus) shearwaters allow the geographic assignment of birds to their non-breeding areas. Location These two species are known to use three main non-breeding areas: the NE Atlantic Ocean, the W Mediterranean and the Aegean-Black seas. Methods: We clustered in three groups the d13C and d15N values of the first primary feather (P1), inferred to be grown during the non-breeding period, of 34 Mediterranean and 56 Balearic shearwaters accidentally caught by longliners. To link the isotopic values of P1 to its corresponding non-breeding area, we performed a discriminant function analysis (DFA) based on the three clusters and applied this function to feathers of known origin: P1 from seven Mediterranean shearwaters from Hye`res Archipelago (France) tracked with geolocators and body feathers from six chicks from Balearic shearwaters. To link the moulting patterns to the areas where the feathers were grown, we applied theDFA to a sequence of primary feathers of eight Balearic and five Mediterranean shearwaters (caught by longliners). Results: Isotopic and tracking data indicate that none of the Mediterranean shearwaters migrated to the Atlantic. The cluster and discriminant function analyses revealed that 8% of Balearic and 54% of Mediterranean shearwater moulted P1 in the Mediterranean Sea. Migratory movements were reflected in the changing isotopic values of the primary sequences. Main conclusions: Stable isotope analyses (SIA) are a powerful approach to reveal the intraspecific variability in the migratory patterns of seabirds that usedistinct isotopic areas over their annual cycle. The assignment of birds to their non-breeding areas by means of SIA is a simple and effective tool that can help to evaluate the impact of human activities in remote areas not only at population but also at individual level, which is an essential knowledge for the management and conservation of threatened species.
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(96) Trace me if you can: the use of intrinsic biogeochemical markers in marine top predators. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 10:258-266.
Ramos, R. and J.González-Solís (2012)
Impacts of human activities on marine top predators are acute. Our poor knowledge of the spatial and trophic ecology of these marine animals ultimately compromises the viability of their populations as well as our ability to use them as environmental biomonitors. Intrinsic biogeochemical markers, such as stable isotopes, fatty acids, trace elements and chemical pollutants are increasingly used to trace spatial and trophic ecology of marine top predators. Outstanding advances include the emergence of the first oceanographic isoscapes, the advent of compound-specific isotopic analyses, the improvements in diet reconstruction using Bayesian statistics and the analysis of tissues of tracked animals to ground-truth biogeochemical profiles. However, most researchers still focus only on a few tracers. Moreover, insufficient knowledge of the biogeochemical integration in tissues, fractionation and routing processes and geographic and temporal variability in baseline levels still hamper their resolution and potential as tracers of the spatial and feeding ecology of top predators.
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