Observations of seabirds at seaDr Ben Raymond, Dr Eric Woehler, and Dr Dave Watts, Australian Antarctic Division |
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| Young southern giant petrel on sea ice near Macey. Photo J. Wills |
Project background
Observations of seabirds at sea have been made by observers on Australian Antarctic ships in the Prydz Bay region during most seasons since 1980/81. Approximately 32000 observations of 26 main species were made from the 1980/81 to 2001/02 seasons. These observations provide a two-decade history of seabird activity in this region of the Antarctic. This project used clustering techniques to identify the communities within the seabird populations.
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| Example observation sheet for seabirds-at-sea |
Summary of results
We found three distinct communities of seabirds within Prydz Bay. The first comprised all nine species of seabird which breed in the Prydz Bay area (emperor and Ad?lie penguins, snow, Cape, and Antarctic petrels, southern giant petrels, southern fulmars, Wilson's storm petrel, and south polar skuas). The second comprised those species which breed in sub-Antarctic or temperate regions and forage in Prydz Bay in the summer months (including many species of albatrosses and shearwaters). There was an overlap of these two communities which had a broad mix of species.
The spatial and temporal ranges of these communities is shown in the figure below. The community of breeding species (red) was widespread during the early part of the season and contracted to the coastal areas of Prydz Bay during the high summer. The community of foraging species (blue) remained well offshore throughout the season.
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| Spatial/temporal map of seabird communities in Prydz Bay. Diagram: Ben Raymond, Eric Woehler |
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| Species composition of seabird communities in Prydz Bay. Diagram: Ben Raymond, Eric Woehler |
References
- Woehler, E.J., Raymond, B., and Watts, D.J. (2003) Decadal-scale seabird assemblages in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica. Marine Ecology Progress Series 251:299-310.
- Raymond, B., and Woehler, E.J. (2003) Predicting seabirds at sea in the Southern Indian Ocean. Marine Ecology Progress Series (accepted subject to revision).
- Woehler, E.J., Raymond, B., and Watts, D.J. (2002) Long-term study analyses seabird communities. Elizabeth Haywood, (ed.) Australian Antarctic Magazine 4:23-24. PDF copy
- Raymond, B. and Woehler, E.J. (2002) Mining Antarctic scientific data: a case study. Australasian Data Mining Conference, Canberra. PDF copy
- Raymond, B. (October 2002) Sieving a different kind of poo: "mining" scientific data. Australian Antarctic Division Seminar Series. Slides available (PDF)
Related resources
At the Australian Antarctic Division
