An inordinate fondness for seabirds: how to explain patterns in abundance and diversity of albatrosses and petrels across the Southern Ocean

Seabirds are amongst the most conspicuous and charismatic of all bird groups, reflecting their often very high abundance at colonies, and their phylogenetic and morphological diversity.

How these species co-exist particularly when they must return to the same stretch of coast or island during the breeding season, has fascinated researchers keen to understand niche partitioning.

The recent exponential increase in tracking data from seabirds offers unprecedented opportunities for research on the distribution, ecology and evolution of seabirds.

Knowledge of key habitat variables allows species distribution models (SDMs) to be built, but there is increasing evidence that birds from adjacent colonies can show spatial segregation, and SDMs sometimes perform poorly when applied to other life-history stages, populations or environments.

The aims of this project are to use extensive tracking datasets from albatrosses and petrels breeding at different island groups in the Southern Ocean to: compare habitat use and foraging behavior across the annual cycle; test the predictive performance of different types of SDMs; determine the role of accessibility and preference in explaining habitat use across populations; examine convergence in habitat preference by ecologically-similar species at different sites and its role in community structure.