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Reduced seasonal sea ice and increased sea surface temperature change prey and foraging behaviour in an ice-obligate Arctic seabird, Mandt’s black guillemot (Cepphus grylle mandtii)

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Abstract

While decreases in Arctic sea ice affect all marine communities in the Arctic Basin, the effects are greatest on the cryopelagic ecosystem and species with critical life history stages dependent on the presence of sea ice. During the recent and ongoing period of rapid sea ice loss these species have been subject to spatial and temporal disruptions requiring behavioural plasticity. Mandt’s Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle mandtii) is one of the few ice-obligate Arctic seabirds. Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) is their preferred prey. We monitored their prey selection and diving behaviour during the annual period of chick provisioning from 2011 to 2017, to assess their ability to respond to the now common seasonal loss of sea ice and increased water temperature in their nearshore foraging area. The percentage of polar cod fed to nestlings decreased with increasing SST, with fourhorn sculpin (Myoxocephalus quadricornis), a nearshore demersal, becoming common (20% of deliveries) with SST > 2.0 °C and comprising more than half of the prey when SST > 3.4 °C. This prey-switch coincided with a marked increase in dives and time underwater per day and a decrease in dive duration as birds switched to nearshore, benthic habitats. Sea ice is declining and SST increasing throughout the Arctic Basin and other upper-trophic level predators dependent on polar cod could be expected to be exhibiting similar prey-switching and modifications in foraging effort.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Friends of Cooper Island and its donors for financial support and the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management for both financial and logistical support. We thank David Ainley and Tony Gaston for helpful comments that improved an earlier version of this manuscript. This article partially resulted from EB’s Honours thesis, and we thank Environmental Biology coordinator J. Whalen for her comments. The Elliott and Humphries lab members provided considerably guidance throughout the project. Penelope Chilton assisted with fieldwork and post-field data processing. The study is a contribution to the Project SENSEI (Sentinels of the sea ice) funded by Fondation BNP Paribas.

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  1. Cooper Island Arctic Research, 652 32nd Ave. E, Seattle, WA, 98112, USA

    G. J. Divoky & E. Brown

  2. Canada Research Chair in Arctic Ecology, Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, H9X 3V9, Canada

    E. Brown & K. H. Elliott

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  1. G. J. Divoky
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EB collected the 2017 data, compiled the dive dataset, Figs. 3, 4 and 5 and the Tables. She wrote the original draft as part of her Honours thesis. GJD collected, or oversaw collection of, data for all remaining years. He produced Figs. 1, 2, 6 and 7 and re-wrote much of the paper. KHE produced the remaining figures, supervised EB and edited subsequent drafts of the paper.

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Correspondence to K. H. Elliott.

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Divoky, G.J., Brown, E. & Elliott, K.H. Reduced seasonal sea ice and increased sea surface temperature change prey and foraging behaviour in an ice-obligate Arctic seabird, Mandt’s black guillemot (Cepphus grylle mandtii). Polar Biol 44, 701–715 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02826-3

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