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Distribution and abundance of the Southern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialoides

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Abstract

We reviewed published and unpublished literature to establish the status of the breeding distribution and abundance of Southern Fulmars Fulmarus glacialoides. The species breeds widely throughout the Antarctic and on peri-Antarctic islands. From breeding population data collated from 73 of these localities, we estimated the minimum global population to be about 400,000 breeding pairs. After adjusting for seasonal variation in numbers of breeding pairs based on studies at Ardery Island, East Antarctica, the total global population is estimated to be at least one million breeding pairs. Of this, 72% nest on islands of the Scotia Sea arc and the South Atlantic Ocean. The precision of the estimate on the total number of breeding pairs is low, as several colony estimates were only available as orders of magnitude. Furthermore, different timing of the surveys and the difficulties of censusing colonial cliff-nesting birds reduced the count accuracy. Currently, there are no known threats to the global population, although the effects of fishery activities are not fully known.

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Acknowledgments

The Ardery Island study was supported by the Australian Antarctic Division and funded by the Netherlands Ant-Arctic Programme (NAAP) through the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (ALW-NWO) and the Netherlands Ministry for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). We thank Louise Blight, Nestor Coria, Maria Gavrilo, Onno Huyser, Kjell Isaksen, and Graham Robertson for submitting data and providing references. We thank Rachel Cox for retrieving unpublished reports from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) archives. We thank Peter Fretwell of the Mapping and Geographic Information Centre at BAS for preparing the distribution maps and Joris Fiselier for final editing of these maps. We thank Dick Visser for editing Fig. 5. Eric Woehler, Wim Wolff and two anonymous reviewers made useful comments to improve the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen-IMARES, P.O. Box 167, 1790 AD Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands

    Jeroen C. S. Creuwels & Jan A. van Franeker

  2. Department of Marine Benthic Ecology and Evolution, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 14, 9750 AA Haren, The Netherlands

    Jeroen C. S. Creuwels

  3. South Georgia Surveys, Beaver Island, c/o P.O. Stanley, Falkland Islands

    Sally Poncet

  4. Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, 1250 Bellflower, Blvd., Long Beach, CA, 90840, USA

    Peter J. Hodum

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  1. Jeroen C. S. Creuwels
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Correspondence to Jeroen C. S. Creuwels.

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Creuwels, J.C.S., Poncet, S., Hodum, P.J. et al. Distribution and abundance of the Southern Fulmar Fulmarus glacialoides . Polar Biol 30, 1083–1097 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-007-0276-0

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