Migration and stopover in a small pelagic seabird, the Manx shearwater Puffinus puffinus: insights from machine learning.

ABSTRACT: The migratory movements of seabirds (especially smaller species) remain poorly understood, despite their role as harvesters of marine ecosystems on a global scale and their potential as indicators of ocean health. Here we report a successful attempt, using miniature archival light loggers (geolocators), to elucidate the migratory behaviour of the Manx shearwater Puffinus puffinus, a small (400 g) Northern Hemisphere breeding procellariform that undertakes a trans-equatorial, trans-Atlantic migration. We provide details of over-wintering areas, of previously unobserved marine stopover behaviour, and the long-distance movements of females during their pre-laying exodus. Using salt-water immersion data from a subset of loggers, we introduce a method of behaviour classification based on Bayesi

SUBMITTER: Guilford T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2660961 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature