Living on the edge of a shrinking habitat: the ivory gull, Pagophila eburnea, an endangered sea-ice specialist.
The ongoing decline of sea ice threatens many Arctic taxa, including the ivory gull. Understanding how ice-edges and ice concentrations influence the distribution of the endangered ivory gulls is a prerequisite to the implementation of adequate conservation strategies. From 2007 to 2013, we used satellite transmitters to monitor the movements of 104 ivory gulls originating from Canada, Greenland, Svalbard-Norway and Russia. Although half of the positions were within 41 km of the ice-edge (75% within 100 km), approximately 80% were on relatively highly concentrated sea ice. Ivory gulls used more concentrated sea ice in summer, when close to their high-Arctic breeding ground, than in winter. The best model to explain the distance of the birds from the ice-edge included the ice concentration within approximately 10 km, the month and the distance to the colony. Given the strong links between ivory gull, ice-edge and ice concentration, its conservation status is unlikely to improve in the current context of sea-ice decline which, in turn, will allow anthropogenic activities to develop in regions that are particularly important for the species.
Université de Bourgogne Franche Comté, UMR 6282 Biogéosciences, 21000 Dijon, France olivier.gilg@gmail.com.|Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Arctique (GREA), 21440 Francheville, France.
Olivier
0000-0002-9083-4492
O
Gilg
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Larysa
L
Istomina
Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Georg
G
Heygster
Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, 9296 Tromsø, Norway.
Hallvard
H
Strøm
National Park Russian Arctic, 168000, Archangelsk, Russia.
Maria V
MV
Gavrilo
Department of Biology, Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada B4P 2R6.
Mark L
ML
Mallory
Environment Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Grant
G
Gilchrist
Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Arctique (GREA), 21440 Francheville, France.
Adrian
A
Aebischer
Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Arctique (GREA), 21440 Francheville, France.
Brigitte
B
Sabard
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany.
Marcus
M
Huntemann
Department of Bioscience and Arctic Research Center, Aarhus University, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
Anders
A
Mosbech
Groupe de Recherche en Ecologie Arctique (GREA), 21440 Francheville, France.|Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, 73376 Le Bourget-Du-Lac, France.
Glenn
0000-0002-6477-2312
G
Yannic
D025041:Animal Migration; D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D046091:Charadriiformes; D017753:Ecosystem; D056727:Endangered Species; D046448:Ice Cover; D058998:Remote Sensing Technology; D012621:Seasons
Arctic; ice concentration; ice-edge; satellite microwave radiometers; satellite tracking; seabird