Eric Vanderwerf and Lindsay Young (Pacific Rim Conservation) write about aspects of the population biology of ACAP-listed Laysan Albatrosses Phoebastria immutabilis in the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve and Kuaokala Game Management Area on the Hawaiian island of Oahu in the journal The Condor – Ornithological Applications.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Understanding population dynamics and determining conservation priorities in long-lived species with delayed breeding often is hampered by lack of information about younger age classes.  Obtaining accurate estimates of juvenile survival and recruitment can be difficult because young individuals are infrequently observed.  We used mark– recapture models to estimate age-specific survival, recruitment, population size, and encounter probability of Laysan Albatrosses (Phoebastria immutabilis) using a 14-yr dataset from Oahu, Hawaii, USA.  We also measured the long-term effect of avian pox virus (Poxvirus avium) on the survival and recruitment of albatrosses infected as nestlings.  Survival of juvenile albatrosses during the first year after fledging was 0.757 6 0.042.  We were able to estimate juvenile survival, the first such estimate in any long-lived seabird, because our high search effort revealed that some birds began visiting the natal colony at the age of 1 yr.  The survival of prebreeders increased rapidly and reached a value in the second year (0.973 6 0.008) that was similar to the survival of breeding adults (0.973 6 0.017).  The average age of first return to the natal colony was 4.24 6 0.11 yr.  The average age at first breeding was 8.44 6 0.15 yr, with recruitment probability peaking at ages 9–10 yr and a single bird being recruited into the breeding population at the age of 4 yr.  Pox virus decreased survival in the first year by 4%–13% and decreased recruitment probability up to age 12 by 4%–26%, depending on the severity of infection.  The total size of the Laysan Albatross population on Oahu in 2015 was 555 birds, consisting of 270 active breeders, 231 prebreeders, and 54 birds that likely skipped breeding that year.  The number of prebreeders constituted an average of 44% of the total population.  These demographic estimates will be useful for population modeling exercises involving various threat and management scenarios, and for examining environmental factors that influence demography.”

A Laysan Albatross pair with their chick at Kaena Point, photograph by Lindsay Young 

Reference:

VanderWerf, E.A. & Young, L.C. 2016.  Juvenile survival, recruitment, population size, and effects of avian pox virus in Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) on Oahu, Hawaii, USA.  Condor 118: 804–814.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 November 2016

The third in the series of Island Invasives Conferences will be held in the Dalhousie Building, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland over the week of 10-14 July 2017, organized by the South Georgia Heritage Trust and the University of Dundee.

The conference will follow on from two previous conferences held in Auckland, New Zealand; the most recent in January 2010.  It will be the first meeting in the series to be held in the Northern Hemisphere.

Registration and abstract (for both orals and posters) submission is now open.  Early-bird registration fees, saving UK£100 on the normal rate, will in principle be available until 30 April 2017. However, the conference lecture theatre holds 350 people, and numbers will likely be capped at this level, so it would be wise to sign up soon.  Presenting authors should register for the conference before submitting their abstracts (go to www.islandinvasives2017.com).

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has offered to publish the proceedings of this conference, as it did for the others in the series.  The Chair of the Conference Committee is Tony Martin, Professor of Animal Conservation, University of Dundee.

ACAP has produced guidelines for the eradication of introduced mammals from breeding sites of ACAP-listed seabirds.  ACAP Latest News regularly reports on the successes, efforts and plans to rid islands in the Southern Ocean of their alien mammals, such as cats, mice, pigs, rabbits, Reindeer and rats, that impact upon albatrosses and petrels.

Read an earlier ACAP Latest News item on the conference.

With thanks to Tony Martin for information.

Selected Literature:

Phillips, R.A. undated.  Guidelines for Eradication of Introduced Mammals from Breeding Sites of ACAP-listed Seabirds.  ACAP Conservation Guideline.  9 pp.

Veitch, C.R. & Clout, M.N. (Eds) 2002. Turning the Tide: the Eradication of Invasive Species.  Proceedings of the International Conference on Eradication of Island Invasives.  Gland & Cambridge: IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group.  414 pp.

Veitch, C.R., Clout, M.N. & Towns, D.R. (Eds) 2011.  Island Invasives: Eradication and Management.  Proceedings of the International Conference on Island Invasives.  Gland: World Conservation Union & Auckland: Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity.  542 pp.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 November 2016

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) meeting this month in Hobart, Australia has achieved consensus among its 24 members and agreed to create the World’s largest Marine Protected Area in the Ross Sea, regarded as one of the very few substantially unaltered large marine ecosystems left in the World (click here).

The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area; KRZ and SRZ are research fishing zones, the rest (i - iii) are "no take"

CCAMLR delegates from New Zealand, United States and Russia added their signatures to a map of the Ross Sea MPA

The Ross Sea MPA, to come into force on 1 December 2017, will cover 1.55 million km², of which 1.12 million km², or 72%, will be fully protected with no fishing permitted.  The remaining areas will be open for research fishing only.  A compromise life of 35 years for the MPA was adopted.

 “This year's decision to establish a Ross Sea MPA follows CCAMLR's establishment, in 2009, of the world’s first high-seas MPA, the South Orkney Islands southern shelf MPA, a region covering 94 000 km² in the south Atlantic.”  It followed five years of negotiation on the proposal by New Zealand and the United States which has been regularly reported on in ACAP Latest News (click here).

Only two ACAP-listed species, the Light-mantled Sooty Albatross Phoebetria palpebrata and the Southern Giant Petrel Macronectes giganteus, breed within the Antarctic Treaty area, neither within the Ross Sea region.  However, the Ross Sea supports several species of ACAP-listed species in their foraging ranges, notably the Black-browed Thalassarche melanophris and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses and the Southern Giant Petrel.

Read the New Zealand and United States official statements on the MPA adoption here:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/agreement-protect-ross-sea-reached

https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/environment/antarctica/ross-sea-region-marine-protected-area

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/10/263763.htm

Selected publications:

Ainley, D.G. 2002. The Ross Sea: where all ecosystem processes still remain for study, but maybe not for long.  Marine Ornithology 30: 55-62.

Ainley, D.G. 2010.  A history of the exploitation of the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Polar Record 46: 233-243.

Ainley, D.G., O'Connor, E.F. & Boekelheide, R.J. 1984.  The marine ecology of birds in the Ross Sea, Antarctica.  Ornithological Monographs 32: 1-97.

Ballard, G., Jongsomjit,D., Veloz, S.D. & Ainley, D.G. 2012.  Coexistence of mesopredators in an intact polar ocean ecosystem: The basis for defining a Ross Sea marine protected area.  Biological Conservation 156: 72-82.

Smith Jr., W.O., Ainley, D.G., Arrigo, K.R. & Dinniman, M.S. 2014.  The oceanography and ecology of the Ross Sea.  Annual Review of Marine Science 6: 469-487.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 October 2016

Miguel Ferrer (Applied Ecology Group, Estación Biológica de Doñana, Seville, Spain) and colleagues have published in the journal Waterbirds on sexing Black-browed Albatrosses Thalassarche melanophrys by bill measurements.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“To provide an easy and reliable work tool to identify the sex of individuals, adult Black-browed Albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophrys) (n = 31) were weighed and measured, and the sex determined using DNA analyses.  Stepwise discriminant analysis showed upper bill depth and weight to be the best predictor variables for sex determination.  This model classified correctly 95.0% of the males and 81.8% of the females (overall success was 90.3%).  Additionally, a single measure discriminant analysis of upper bill depth was developed that is able to separate sexes using a threshold upper bill depth of 29.87 mm, with values above this point being males and values below it being females.”

Black-browed Albatrosses engage in preening, photograph by Aleks Terauds

Reference:

Ferrer, M., Morandini, V., Perry, L. & Bechard, M. 2016.  Sex determination by morphological measurements of Black-browed Albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophrys) Using Discriminant Analysis.  Waterbirds 39: 295-299.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 October 2016