Standard Presentation (15 mins) Australian Marine Sciences Association 2022

Seabird Foraging Responses to Climate Change on the Great Barrier Reef (#172)

Nicholas James 1
  1. James Cook University, Douglas, QLD, Australia

Accurate assessment of the threats to populations from human activity is an integral step in our pathway to preserving them and the ecosystem services they provide. Seabirds, for example, contribute seed dispersal, nutrient distribution and prey population regulation but remain threatened by pollution, fishing (bycatch and overfishing) and climate change. The effects of climate change on these populations remain largely unknown and, subsequently, underestimated. In particular, our knowledge of population responses to climate afflicted oceanographic processes which drive seabird prey distribution, quality and abundances across marine regions is scarce. Given the strict energy budgets of seabird populations, these changes are likely to have significant impacts on seabird populations with near immediate responses in foraging behaviour. In this project I describe the mechanisms affecting prey availability for a Great Barrier Reef black noddy (Anous minutus) colony during breeding season. In doing so, I demonstrate well established methodologies (Hidden Markov Model, Resource Selection Function) are suitable tools to locate and contrast foraging locations from the surrounding available habitat and extract foraging parameters. This work supplies new information to current knowledge gaps in climate threats to seabirds and contributes to a more holistic understanding of seabird responses to climate change and to future population management.