Meeting Abstract

P2.8  Saturday, Jan. 5  The heat is on: air temperature, burrow temperature, and reproductive success in a long-lived seabird O’CONNELL, C.*; VILLAR-LEEMAN, C.; FRICKE, E.; GANNON, D.; GANNON, J.; MAUCK, R.A.; Kenyon College; Bowdoin College; Bowdoin College; Bowdoin College; Bowdoin College; Kenyon College mauckr@kenyon.edu

One effect of global climate change has been a steady increase in summer temperatures at seabird breeding colonies in the North Atlantic. Leach’s storm-petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa) is a long-lived pelagic seabird that produces a single offspring per breeding season. Over a 44-day incubation period, mates alternate incubation bouts, fasting for up to 7 days in an underground nesting burrow. Developing chicks spend 65-70 days in the burrow before fledging. We investigated the effect of variation in air temperature on burrow microclimate and its effect on reproductive success and adult nutritional condition in a breeding colony of Leach’s storm-petrels at Kent Island, in the Bay of Fundy, Canada. Successful burrows tend to be drier than unsuccessful burrows with longer entrance tunnels and larger nest chambers. We used miniature temperature loggers to assess how burrow temperature varied between successful and unsuccessful burrows and whether differences in burrow microclimate remain consistent across the range of air temperatures encountered during the incubation period. Additionally, we investigated the influence of burrow temperature on the energetic costs to incubating adults using ptilochronology; growth rate of feathers served as an index of the incubating adult’s nutritional status during that period. Finally, we gauged the effect of burrow temperature on chick growth during the two-month chick-rearing period. By assessing the effect of variation in ambient air temperature on burrow microclimate, reproductive success, and feather growth we can better understand how burrow-nesting seabirds may respond to climate change.