Are seabirds foraging for unpredictable resources?

It is generally assumed that the extreme life history traits of pelagic seabirds, such as low fecundity or slow growth of chicks, result from the difficulties obtaining energy at sea from unpredictable and patchily distributed resources. However, little information on seabird prey distribution and availability exists to sustain this widely accepted hypothesis. Using tracking studies of 68 sub-populations of flying seabirds, I examine whether it is possible to gain information on the predictability of their marine resources. Because prey are clustered from fine to large scale in nested unities, from swarms to patches and concentrations of patches, it is important to take into account spatial scale. In temperate and polar regions, at large and meso-scales, seabirds appear to have a good knowledge of the location and concentrations of patches and generally use a commuting type of trip to reach foraging zones. Predictability appears to be high at large and meso-scales, with individuals from each Sub-population heading in a particular direction from the colony to reach favoured habitats of known enhanced productivity such as shelf edges, frontal zones, upwellings. Within these mesoscale features, the animals use an area-restricted search behaviour to search for patches and swarms at finer scales. Using information on foraging site fidelity of individual birds, I show that differences in predictability at coarse scales are related to the distance and time spent foraging, and in particular to the specific types of foraging habitat. Some habitats appear to be more predictable than others: birds return consistently to the same coarse-scale sectors on shelf edges, whereas predictability is low in oceanic waters, even in frontal zones. Preliminary results on tropical species suggest that the environment here is less predictable in tropic than in temperate or polar zones. This review highlights that patchiness and predictability of marine resources are complex notions: predictability is dependent on the spatial and temporal scale considered, and especially on the marine habitat of foraging interest. I discuss the potential consequences of these results for the breeding success and life history of seabirds. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.