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Island specificities matter: cat diet differs significantly between islands of a major breeding archipelago for a vulnerable endemic seabird

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Abstract

Domestic cats are one of the most widespread predators on islands worldwide and are responsible for numerous reductions and extinctions of species on islands. The three main islands of the Hyères Archipelago house one of the largest colonies of the Mediterranean endemic Yelkouan shearwater Puffinus yelkouan that has recently been up-listed by the IUCN to ‘vulnerable’. The main objectives of this study were to assess the diet of cats and to study the effect of cat predation on Yelkouan shearwater populations at the archipelago scale. The diet of cats was studied using scat analyses according to years and seasons for each island. Simultaneously, Yelkouan shearwater breeding success was monitored during a period of 8 years on Port-Cros and Porquerolles, and 3 years on Le Levant. Descriptive analyses and GLM were used to compare data gathered on each island. At the archipelago scale, cats preyed strongly upon introduced mammals and shearwaters. Surprisingly, large differences appeared in cats’ diet according to the island considered. The Yelkouan shearwater was the primary prey of cats on Le Levant, but secondary on Port-Cros and Porquerolles. Cat predation was mainly concentrated during the shearwater prospecting period, when birds arrive at the colonies and look for a mate (if they are not already paired) and a burrow before breeding. Consequently cat impact was low on shearwater breeding success. However, this study demonstrates that the cat management conducted on Port-Cros was positive for fledging success. The successful cat eradication on Port-Cros supports the need to continue working for Yelkouan shearwater conservation with Le Levant as a priority, because this is where the colonies are largest and predation on Yelkouan shearwaters is very high.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the DGA of Le Levant Island and the director and managers of Port-Cros National Park for granting permission for this research and to all those from IMBE for their useful help in the field, particularly Jérôme Legrand, Gérald Berger and several Master students. The manuscript was greatly improved taking into account the comments of two anonymous referees. We also thank Alok Bang and Aldyth Nys Traductions for improving the English. Funds and support were provided by the Port-Cros National Park and the French National Research Agency (ALIENS project), the Conseil Regional PACA and a European Life project grant to LPO PACA.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Unité Ecologie, Systématique et Evolution, Equipe Ecologie des Populations et des Communautés, UMR 8079/UPS/CNRS/AgroParisTech, Université Paris-Sud 11, Bât. 362, 91405, Orsay Cedex, France

      Elsa Bonnaud, Pauline Palmas & Sebastien Ollier

    2. School of Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

      Karen Bourgeois

    3. Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie Marine et Continentale, UMR AMU/CNRS/IRD/UAPV, Europole de l’Arbois, Aix-Marseille Université, BP 80, 13545, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France

      Karen Bourgeois & Diane Zarzoso-Lacoste

    4. Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie Marine et Continentale, UMR AMU/CNRS/IRD/UAPV, Centre IRD de Nouméa, Aix-Marseille Université, BP A5, 98848, Nouméa Cedex, Nouvelle-Calédonie, France

      Pauline Palmas & Eric Vidal

    5. Université Rennes 1, UMR CNRS 6553 ECOBIO, Campus de Beaulieu, Rennes, France

      Diane Zarzoso-Lacoste

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    1. Elsa Bonnaud
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    2. Pauline Palmas
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    Correspondence to Elsa Bonnaud.

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    Elsa Bonnaud and Pauline Palmas have contributed equally to this work.

    Appendix

    Appendix

    Coinertia analysis (Dray et al. 2003) was performed between PO table and PN table for each experimental condition. The plot of correlations between PCA axes of each table and coinertia axes show the close relationships between both tables. The link is motivated by significant P value of the RV test (Heo and Gabriel 1997) written on each panel.

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    Bonnaud, E., Palmas, P., Bourgeois, K. et al. Island specificities matter: cat diet differs significantly between islands of a major breeding archipelago for a vulnerable endemic seabird. Biol Invasions 17, 2927–2941 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-015-0921-4

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