Modelling sea-bird central place foraging under anthropogenic environmental change

Many seabirds display complex foraging behaviours constrained by nesting sites, food availability, and foraging distributions of neighbouring colonies. Given extensive environmental variation, characterising these complex return foraging trips is vital for understanding how individual foraging patterns affect

time-energy budgets, which propagate through to shape population dynamics and inform conservation of these species. Realistic biologically-motivated (rather than purely empirical) models of foraging are crucial to quantify the consequences of climate change for seabirds, and to understand the impacts of the expansion in offshore renewable energy to meet UK climate change targets.