Meeting Abstract

P1.197  Wednesday, Jan. 4  Which way to turn? Within-colony movement patterns in a long-lived seabird SORENSON, Graham H*; HUNTINGTON, Chuck E; MAUCK, Robert A; Kenyon College; Bowdoin College; Kenyon College sorensong@kenyon.edu

Colonial seabirds often demonstrate high levels of breeding philopatry at multiple spatial scales. We used a 50-year demographic study of a long-lived pelagic seabird, Leach’s storm petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa), to investigate within-colony, between-year movement patterns. Combining nest-site occupancy, reproductive success, and geographic information systems, we investigated questions relating to the effect of reproductive success on the decision to change nesting burrows, as well as the direction and distance to move. We found that the choice to change burrows between years was driven by low reproductive success at both the individual and local level. When changing burrows, individuals moved toward areas within the colony where mean reproductive success had been high the previous year. Our results suggest that storm-petrels respond to colony-wide information when making decisions to improve reproductive success in subsequent years.