Chick diet of dovekies Alle alle in Northwest Greenland

This pager reports the results of an investigation of dovekies (Alle alle) breeding at Hakluyt Island in the Thule District, Northwest Greenland. The paper presents a comprehensive examination of the chick diet of dovekies in the species' most important breeding area. Food delivered to nestlings consisted primarily of copepods Calanus hyperboreus and C. glacialis in the copepodite stages IV and V. Themisto libellula, other amphipods, decapods and fish larvae in small numbers were found in the chick diet. The zooplankton in the chick diet is presented both in terms of numbers and dry weight. The characteristic copepod of high-arctic waters, C. hyperboreus, was found to be the single most important species in the chick diet, contributing approximately 54% of the dry food weight. The food samples revealed low diversity, and the three species C. hyperboreus, C. glacialis and T. libellula made up 91.5% of the total zooplankton dry weight. The results from this paper are compared with previous dovekie-chick diet studies.