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Categorizing the influences of two large seabird colonies on island freshwater ecosystems in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean

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Abstract

Seabird colonies influence ecosystems by releasing high concentrations of nutrients, metals, and contaminants via their wastes. Here, we examined seven lentic waterbodies impacted by two major colonies of Leach’s Storm-petrel (Hydrobates leucorhous), six from Baccalieu Island, Newfoundland and Labrador with ~ 1.95 million breeding pairs, and another from Grand Colombier Island, St. Pierre and Miquelon with ~ 200,000 breeding pairs. In comparison to nearby study sites not influenced by seabirds, we recorded more acidic pH, elevated specific conductance, and higher concentrations of dissolved organic carbon, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus in the seabird-influenced sites. The storm-petrels also significantly increased the metal concentrations of Co, Cu, Fe, Li, Nb, Ni, Sn, Sr, and Ti relative to reference sites. In the most highly affected ponds, the concentrations of Cd, Cu, and Fe exceeded Canadian Water Quality Guidelines for the Protection of Aquatic Life, implicating seabirds as biovectors of environmental contamination. Together, our data highlight the importance of seabirds, and likely other colonial organisms, as influential vectors that can strongly impact aquatic ecosystem chemistry and biota.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Christopher Grooms for assistance in fieldwork in September 2017 and August 2018, and Dr. Carsten Meyer-Jacob in September 2018. We thank Bruno Letournel and Susie Rance for fieldwork assistance in St. Pierre. The photograph for Fig. 2d was taken by Dr. Karen Delord and used here with permission. We acknowledge the Land Management Division, Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Fisheries and Land Resources as the managing agency for the Baccalieu Island Ecological Reserve. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Funding

This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (Grant no. RGPIN-2017-04548 awarded to JPS and PGSD3-546925-2020 awarded to MPD).

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  1. Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), Department of Biology, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Matthew P. Duda, Neal Michelutti & John P. Smol

  2. Aquatic Ecosystem Protection Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Burlington, ON, L7S 1A1, Canada

    Xiaowa Wang

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  1. Matthew P. Duda
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  2. Neal Michelutti
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  4. John P. Smol
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MPD designed the research, collected samples, and analyzed the data. XW handled water sample analyses. All authors contributed to data interpretation, writing, and approved of the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthew P. Duda.

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Duda, M.P., Michelutti, N., Wang, X. et al. Categorizing the influences of two large seabird colonies on island freshwater ecosystems in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Hydrobiologia 848, 885–900 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04498-2

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