The Distribution of Central Pacific Seabirds: Relationships with Productivity, Distance from Land, and Island Nutrient System
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Seabirds are a major top marine predator and in large numbers, can play a large role in nutrient cycling between land and sea. Understanding the relationship between seabird distribution across the ocean and factors such as productivity and distance from land can help us to understand the area of this nutrient flow, and to predict where seabirds may influence marine systems. This project strove to understand the effect of productivity on population size and distance traveled from land in two central Pacific seabird communities. One hundred and eighty-two 10-minute observations, recording the number and type of seabirds seen, were carried out on a cruise track between 19 degrees north and 2 degrees north. This cruise track passed from the Hawaiian Islands to the Line Islands. Forty-eight sea surface water samples were also analyzed for chlorophyll-a concentration. Results show that the Line Islands are surrounded by much more productive waters than the Hawaiian Islands, and as such support a much larger and more diverse seabird community. In addition, the Line Islands seabirds travel less far from land, on average, to forage. This suggests that there is a relationship between productivity and foraging distance. The Line Islands supported a seabird community dominated by terns and boobies, whereas the Hawaiian Islands community was dominated by shearwaters and petrels, a group with much lower cost of traveling. These results suggest that the more productive Line Islands system is receiving more nutrients from seabirds, but from a much smaller ocean area than the Hawaiian Islands.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 11, 2007 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Schamel, Juliann |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | Stanford@SEA |
|---|---|
| Subject | S-211 |
| Subject | Hopkins Marine Station |
| Subject | Department of Biology |
| Subject | Department of Earth System Science |
| Subject | BIOHOPK 182H |
| Subject | BIOHOPK 323H |
| Subject | EARTHSYS 323 |
| Subject | ESS 323 |
| Subject | seabird |
| Subject | nutrient cycle |
| Subject | central Pacific |
| Subject | Hawaii |
| Subject | Line Islands |
| Subject | chlorophyll |
| Subject | productivity |
| Subject | foraging distance |
| Subject | diversity |
| Subject | distance from land |
| Subject | tern |
| Subject | booby |
| Subject | shearwater |
| Subject | petrel |
| Genre | Student project report |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Schamel, Juliann. 2007. The Distribution of Central Pacific Seabirds: Relationships with Productivity, Distance from Land, and Island Nutrient System. Unpublished Student Work, S-211, Stanford@SEA, Stanford Digital Repository. https://purl.stanford.edu/jd045wt1319.
Collection
Stanford@SEA -- Student papers
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- Contact
- thalassa@stanford.edu
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