Annual survival of Arctic terns in western Iceland
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Annual survival of Arctic terns in western Iceland Aevar Petersen1 · Gregory J. Robertson2 · Sverrir Thorstensen3 · Mark L. Mallory4,5 Received: 2 August 2019 / Revised: 13 September 2020 / Accepted: 15 September 2020 / Published online: 26 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Many seabird species in the North Atlantic region have shown considerable declines in their populations during recent decades. One such species is the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea), a small seabird which migrates farther than any other seabird each year and whose global population is thought to be in decline. We used banding data of chicks and adults, spanning five decades (1974–2017) from a tern colony on Flatey, in western Iceland, to generate the first assessment of annual survival in this species in Iceland. Survival from just after hatching to the next summer was estimated to be 0.119 ± 0.024 (SE), while annual survival of adult birds (older than one year) was high at 0.952 ± 0.030. Although our data were insufficient to assess annual variation in adult survival, we noted a reduced survival (0.851 ± 0.034) in recent years (since 2000), coincident with a collapse in local sand lance populations. Reduced adult survival, along with other factors, is likely contributing to declining populations of this iconic species in Iceland, a country supporting 20–30% of the world’s breeding population. Keywords Arctic tern · Sterna paradisaea · Survival · Iceland · Banding
Introduction Populations of many seabird species have declined over the past decades, due to anthropogenic activities in both terrestrial and marine environments (reviewed in Croxall et al. 2012), as well as climate change (e.g., Daunt and Mitchell 2013). This has been evident in birds inhabiting colonies around the North Atlantic Ocean, where declines have been observed in populations of many species (Sandvik et al. 2005; Mavor et al. 2008), including thick-billed murres Uria lomvia (Frederiksen et al. 2016), black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla (Descamps et al. 2017), and glaucous gulls Larus hyperboreus (Petersen et al. 2015). One such species is the Arctic tern Sterna paradisaea (Burnham et al. 2017), * Mark L. Mallory [email protected] 1
Brautarland 2, 108 Reykjavik, Iceland
2
Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 6 Bruce Street, Mount Pearl, NL A1N 4T3, Canada
3
Langahlíð 9a, 603 Akureyri, Iceland
4
Biology, Acadia University, 15 University Avenue, Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6, Canada
5
Canada Fulbright Chair in Arctic Studies, University of Washington, Box 353650, Seattle, WA 98195‑3560, USA
which migrates farther than any other seabird (Egevang et al. 2010). The challenge for scientists and wildlife managers is to determine what part of the species’ annual cycle is most at threat or driving the declines, in order to enact conservation measures to maintain or restore populations. For instance, factors that reduce adult survival can have substantial and long-la
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