Elisa de Souza Petersen (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, Laboratório de Ornitologia e Animais Marinhos, São Leopoldo, Brazil) and colleagues have published online in the NCT-APA Annual Activity Report 01/2015 on the presence of Influenza A virus in Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus in Antarctica.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Influenza A virus was detected in different species of birds and migratory aquatic birds. They are the main reservoir of the virus.  In this research we detected the first Influenza A virus in Southern Giant Petrel in an Antarctic region.  The results represent 0.33% of the samples collected in two breeding areas of the species.  Some factors can explain the introduction of these pathogens and diseases in Antarctica, such as bird’s migratory behavior and the remains of the virus in cold waters."

Southern Giant Petrel in Antarctica, photograph by Michael Dunn

Reference:

de Souza Petersen, E., Petry, M,V., Durigon, E. & Araújo, J. 2015.  Influenza detected in Macronectes giganteus in two islands of South Shetlands, Antarctica.  NCT-APA Annual Activity Report 01/2015. pp. 35-38.  DOI: 10.4322/apa.2015.004.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 10 September 2015

A website exists which considers the issue of light pollution affecting nocturnal breeding seabirds, a subject regularly covered in ACAP Latest News (click here).

Newell's Shearwater: at risk to light pollution on Hawaii, photograph by Eric Vanderwerf

“On archipelagos worldwide, high numbers of fledglings of different seabird species are attracted to artificial lights during their first flights to the sea.  Grounded birds are vulnerable to starvation, predation, dehydration and collision with vehicles.  Rescue campaigns are carried out in many places, but only a few have been documented.

This website is dedicated to the study of this phenomenon and to the improvement of conservation actions.  It is intended for seabird researchers and managers involved in rescue campaigns who are willing to share knowledge, skills, experience and literature.”

The website currently requires approval to join and is password protected (click here).

For more information contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 09 September 2015

Peter Ryan (FitzPatrick Institute University of Cape Town, South Africa) has provided a commentary in the journal Environmental Pollution on residence times of plastic items ingested by procellariiform seabirds.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Understanding how rapidly seabirds excrete or regurgitate ingested plastic items is important for their use as monitors of marine debris.   van Franeker and Law (2015) inferred that fulmarine petrels excrete ∼75% of plastic particles within a month of ingestion based on decreases in the amounts of plastic in the stomachs of adult petrels moving to relatively clean environments to breed. However, similar decreases occur among resident species due to adults passing plastic loads to their chicks.  The few direct measures of wear rates and retention times of persistent stomach contents suggest longer plastic residence times in most albatrosses and petrels.  Residence time presumably varies with item size, type of plastic, the amount and composition of other persistent stomach contents, and the size at which items are excreted, which may vary among taxa.  Accurate measures of ingested plastic retention times are needed to better understand temporal and spatial patterns in ingested plastic loads within marine organisms, especially if they are to be used as indicators of plastic pollution trends.”

Ingested plastic artefacts within a decomposed corpse of a Laysan Albatross chick on Midway Atoll, photograph by Chris Jordan

Click here to access the Van Franeker & Law (2015) paper.

Reference:

Ryan, P.G. 2015.  How quickly do albatrosses and petrels digest plastic particles?  Environmental Pollution doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2015.08.005.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 08 September 2015

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU).  SCAR is “charged with initiating, developing and coordinating high-quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system”.  Next year SCAR will be holding the next in its regular series of biennial SCAR Open Science Conferences in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia over 22-26 August.  The conference forms part of the 34th Meeting of SCAR, to be held over 20-31 August at the same venue (click here).

Southern Ocean seabird par excellence: the Light-mantled Sooty Albatross, photograph by Aleks Terauds

As well as four plenary lectures, the conference will hold five “mini-symposia”, two of which will have an environmental theme:

MS 2.  Connecting the biological and the physical: environmental drivers of biodiversity in Antarctica; and

MS 3. Linking Antarctic Science with Environmental Protection: celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Madrid Protocol.

In addition, the conference currently plans a total of 41 sessions on a wide range of subjects, with several having an environmental theme.  Session descriptions will be available in “the coming months” on the conferemce website after conveners have been selected.  Abstracts may be submitted from 1 October with details on registration still to come on the conference website.

SCAR’s region of interest includes the Southern Ocean and its sub-Antarctic islands, home to the majority of ACAP-listed albatrosses and petrels.

The previous SCAR Open Science Conference was held in New Zealand in 2014.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 07 September 2015