A Grey Petrel chick in its burrow, artwork in acrylics by Kitty Harvill for ACAP; after a photograph by Ben Dilley 

Jeremy Bird (School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) and colleagues have published open access in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation on studying ACAP-listed and Near Threatened Grey Petrels Procellaria cinerea and Blue Petrels Halobaena caerulea on Australia’s sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island using camera traps.

Camera trap set-up and results: (A) checking Spypoint cameras in a Blue Petrel colony, (B) a Blue Petrel emerging from its burrow, (C) a Recconyx camera outside a Grey Petrel burrow and (D) a Grey Petrel chick close to fledging exercising outside its burrow.  From the publication

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Burrowing seabirds are important in ecological and conservation terms. Many populations are in flux due to both negative and positive anthropogenic impacts, but their ecology makes measuring changes difficult. Reliably recording key metrics, the proportion of burrows with breeding pairs and the success of breeding attempts requires burrow-level information on occupancy. We investigated the use of camera traps positioned at burrow entrances for determining the number of breeding pairs in a sample to inform population estimates, and for recording breeding success. The performance of two cameras makes we tested differed markedly, with Spypoint Force 10 trail cameras prone to malfunction while Reconyx HC600 Hyperfire cameras performed well. Nevertheless, both makes yielded season-long activity patterns for individual burrows, eliminating uncertainty around successful fledging attempts. Dimensionality reduction of activity metrics derived from camera time series suggests breeding and non-breeding burrows may be identifiable using linear discriminant analyses but sample sizes from our trial were low and group means were only significantly different during certain breeding stages (permutational multivariate analysis of variance: early chick-rearing f = 3.64, P = 0.06; late chick-rearing f = 8.28, P = 0.009). Compared with traditional techniques for determining burrow occupancy (e.g. manual burrow inspection and playback of conspecific calls at burrow entrances), camera traps can reduce uncertainty in estimated breeding success and potentially breeding status of burrows. Significant up-front investment is required in terms of equipment and human resources but for long-term studies, camera traps may deliver advantages, particularly when unanticipated novel observations and the potential for calibrating traditional methods with cameras are factored in.”

Reference:

Bird, J.P., Fuller, R.A., Pascoe, P.P. & Shaw, J.D.S. 2021.  Trialling camera traps to determine occupancy and breeding in burrowing seabirds.  Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation doi.org/10.1002/rse2.235.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 26 August 2021

Buller's Albatross, artwork by Shary Page Weckwerth for ACAP; from a photograph by Paul Sagar

Jana Wold (School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues report in the journal Emu - Austral Ornithology on genetic differences between Northern Thalassarche bulleri platei and Southern T. b. bulleri Buller’s Albatrosses.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“The Buller’s albatross species complex is composed of two asynchronously breeding subspecies, the Northern Buller’s albatross (Thalassarche bulleri platei) and Southern Buller’s albatross (Thalassarche bulleri bulleri). The aim of this study was to test for genetic differentiation between Northern and Southern Buller’s albatross and to reassess genetic connectivity between these populations. Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) was used to estimate gene flow and genome-wide divergence using 13 T. b. platei and 40 T. b. bulleri samples. The STACKS de novo and reference guided pipelines were used to call single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for three data sets: one each for Northern and Southern Buller’s and a third for both taxa together. The number of SNPs in each de novo data set was relatively consistent from 12,148 to 11,898 for Northern and Southern Buller’s albatross collections, respectively. A random subsample of 1000 SNPs from each of the two groups indicated that mean per-site nucleotide diversity and heterozygosity were slightly higher for Northern Buller’s albatross (π = 0.335; H_E = 0.322) than for either of the two Southern Buller’s albatross breeding colonies (π = 0.286 and 0.294; H_E = 0.275 and 0.288). Both STRUCTURE and discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) consistently showed differentiated clusters corresponding to Northern and Southern Buller’s but did not resolve population structure among Southern Buller’s breeding populations. These results indicate that an asynchronous breeding season likely limits gene flow between Northern and Southern Buller’s albatross and have important implications for the taxonomic status of Buller’s albatrosses.”

Reference:

Wold, J.R., Robertson, C.J.R., Chambers, G.K., Van Stijn, T. & Ritchie, P.A. 2021.  Genetic connectivity in allopatric seabirds: lack of inferred gene flow between Northern and Southern Buller’s albatross populations (Thalassarche bulleri ssp.).  Emu - Austral Ornithology 121: 113-123.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 25 August 2021

A Northern Giant Petrel  broods its chick, watercolour by Shary Page Weckwerth for ACAP; after a photograph by Laurie Smaglick Johnson

 As for nearly all international meetings affected by COVID-19, the Twelfth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC12) and of two of its working groups are being held virtually; a first for ACAP.  This year’s meetings - delayed from last year by the pandemic - are now being held from 16/17 August to 1/2 September (depending on where you are in the world).  Meetings of the Seabird Bycatch Working Group and the Population and Conservation Status Working Group are preceding AC12; SBWG10 (which has already met) from 16/17 to 18/19 August, and PaCSWG6 from 23/24 to 24/25 August.  AC12 will meet from 30/31 August to 1/2 September.

PaCSWG6 is being chaired by its Co-convenors, Marco Favero from Argentina and Patricia Serafini from Brazil, with the support of Vice- Convenor Richard Phillips (UK).  The working group’s full membership and Terms  of Reference may be viewed by scrolling down from here.  Four Documents (including a Draft Meeting Agenda, PaCSWG 6 Doc 01 Rev. 1) and 22 Information Papers have been tabled for consideration, leading to an expected busy meeting over the two days allotted.  All these documents can be downloaded from this website but note that some are password protected and so only their abstracts are available to be read.

Further information is available in AC12 Circular 5 in the three official ACAP languages of English, French and Spanish on timing at different localities and lengths of the three meetings.  Congress Rental has been chosen to manage the technical aspects of the meeting, using the Interprefy platform.  Interprefy enables “relay interpretation” (involving multiple languages – three in the case of ACAP).  Congress Rental is providing technical advice to Chairs, Convenors, Secretariat, interpreters and to other participants.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 24 August 2021

Campbell Albatross at sea; artwork by Annie Shoemaker-Magdaleno, after a photograph by Kirk Zufelt 

David Thompson (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd., Wellington, New Zealand) and colleagues have published in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems on the at-sea distribution of New Zealand’s endemic and globally Vulnerable Campbell Albatross Thalassarche impavida.

The paper’s abstract follows:

1. The use of miniaturized electronic tracking devices has illuminated our understanding of seabird distributions and habitat use, and how anthropogenic threats interact with seabirds in both space and time. To determine the year-round distribution of adult Campbell albatross (Thalassarche impavida), a single-island endemic, breeding only at Campbell Island in New Zealand's subantarctic, a total of 68 year-long location data sets were acquired from light-based geolocation data-logging tags deployed on breeding birds in 2009 and 2010.
2. During the incubation and chick-guard phases of the breeding season, birds used cool (<10°C) waters over the Campbell Plateau, but also ranged over deeper, shelf-break and oceanic waters (4,000–5,500 m) beyond the Plateau. Later in the breeding season, during post-guard chick-rearing, Campbell albatrosses exploited generally deep waters (4,000–5,000 m) beyond the Campbell Plateau.
3. During the non-breeding period, adults tended to move northwards into warmer (approximately 15°C) waters and occupied areas beyond western Australia in the west to offshore from Chile in the east. Overall, about 30% of adults spent some of their non-breeding period in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, substantially expanding the previously reported range for this species.
4. One bird, that failed in its breeding attempt in October 2009, departed Campbell Island and circumnavigated the southern oceans before being recaptured back at Campbell Island in October 2010. This is the first example of an annually-breeding albatross species completing a circumnavigation between breeding attempts.
5. Overlap with fishing effort, using data from the Global Fishing Watch database, was assessed on a monthly and seasonal basis. Generally, levels of overlap between Campbell albatross and fishing effort were relatively low during the breeding season but were approximately 60% higher during the non-breeding period, underlining the need for international initiatives to safeguard this species.”

With thanks to Richard Phillips, British Antarctic Survey.

Reference:

Thompson, D.R., Goetz, K.T., Sagar, P.M., Torres, L.G., Kroeger, C.E., Sztukowski, L.A., Orben, R.A., Hoskins, A.J. & Phillips, R.A. 2021.  The year-round distribution and habitat preferences of Campbell albatross (Thalassarche impavida).  Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems doi.org/10.1002/aqc.3685.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 23 August 2021