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In the north Atlantic, rocky intertidal shores with diverse macroalgal assemblages are common. Despite this, the effect of macroalgae on bird use of these habitats is not well understood. We used a single-season, single-species occupancy framework to investigate the influence of the macroalgal assemblage on 3 bird guilds and 2 single-species groups: shorebirds (waders), scavengers, divers, common eiderSomateria mollissimanon-parenting adults, and common eider broods. In particular, we considered whether bird occupancy is more strongly determined by the taxonomic composition of the macroalgal assemblage or by structural characteristics of the collective assemblage. We conducted avian point counts and intertidal habitat surveys at 75 sites along the Maine (USA) coast in 2016 and 2017. Macroalgae increased the probability of site occupancy for 1 guild and 2 single-species groups. Most notably, we found that shorebird occupancy had a positive relationship with the spatial extent and mat depth ofAscophyllum nodosum, indicating a preference for more homogeneous and deeper macroalgal assemblages dominated by this common, tall-canopied taxon. In contrast, common eider presence had a positive relationship with the spatial extent of 2 categories of shorter-canopied macroalgae that are less dominant members of the macroalgal assemblage. Both shorebirds and eiders were less likely to occur in areas with steeper intertidal slopes, which provide less potential habitat during low tides. Overall, our results suggest that macroalgae composition and availability influences bird occupancy in rocky intertidal habitats, but more mechanistic studies (e.g. behavioral) are needed to understand the exact role macroalgae play in coastal bird ecology.

Miniature transmitters now permit ornithologists to track the annual cycle of smaller ( 7 days. We detected three Roseate Terns with their bill stuck in the harness material, with one documented mortality. Common Terns tolerated the tags and provided useful data on annual movements but were not a suitable surrogate for predicting the effects of backpack mounted transmitters on Roseate Terns. Researchers considering tracking Roseate Terns should avoid using backpack harnesses.

The status and trends of Maine's island-nesting Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) and Great Blackbacked Gull (L. marinus) populations have changed dramatically over the last century. Aerial photographs were used to count nesting Herring and Great Black-backed gulls at all colonies along the coast of Maine, USA, in 2008 and 2013. Population trends were assessed by comparing current survey data to a previous coastwide survey in 1977. The breeding population of Herring Gulls in Maine was estimated at 24,302 pairs nesting on 180 islands during 2008 and 21,488 pairs nesting on 180 islands during 2013. This represents an annual decline of 2.3% in the number of nests in Maine from 2008 to 2013. The breeding population of Great Blackbacked Gulls in Maine was estimated at 10,094 pairs nesting on 197 islands during 2008 and 6,934 pairs nesting on 191 islands during 2013. This represents an annual decline of 6.3% in the number of nests in Maine from 2008 to 2013. Nesting populations for both species appeared...

In the western North Atlantic, Common (Sterna hirundo) and Arctic (S. paradisaea) Terns are sympatric at breeding colonies but show divergent migration strategies to coastal areas of South America and pelagic regions of the Antarctic, respectively. During 2013, we studied postbreeding movements of adult Common (n = 130) and Arctic (n = 52) Terns from four breeding colonies in the eastern USA and Canada using digital very high frequency (VHF) transmitters and an array of 62 automated radio telemetry towers. Relative to hatch dates at respective colonies, Arctic Terns departed breeding sites an average of eight days later than Common Terns. Common Terns were detected during the postbreeding period by coastal towers upward of 850 km south of their original nesting sites. The telemetry array detected postbreeding movements of Arctic Terns from the Petit Manan Island colony in the Gulf of Maine as they traveled eastward past Nova Scotia, Canada, mostly during the night. Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts, USA was identified as an important staging area for Common Terns from all colonies, whereby 26% of 53 tagged Common Terns from colonies in the Gulf of Maine and Canada were detected for up to three weeks. Common Terns typically arrived at Nantucket Sound within 2 h of sunset, 2 to 10 days after their last detection at Gulf of Maine and Canadian colonies, suggesting rapid postbreeding dispersal. Postbreeding dispersal of Arctic Terns was poorly documented with the telemetry array, suggesting that this species is not using coastal sites for staging, and is instead departing directly from colonies to offshore staging areas prior to long-distance migrations. We conclude that digital VHF telemetry is a useful method for monitoring regional movements of Common Terns, but additional offshore receiving stations are needed to effectively monitor movements of Arctic Terns away from their nesting colonies.

Identifying the overlap of commercial fishing grounds and seabird habitat can suggest areas of high bycatch risk and inform management and mitigation measures. We used Bayesian state space modeling to describe the movements of 10 satellite-tagged Great Shearwaters and a bivariate kernel density technique to investigate spatial overlap with commercial fishing effort to predict areas of high bycatch in the Gulf of Maine. We then used contemporaneous fishery observer data to test the validity of our predictions, highlighting an area constituting 1% of the Gulf of Maine as having the highest bycatch risk that accounted for 50% of observed takes. Fishery observer data also provided insights into characteristics of the seabird-fishery interactions. Our results indicate that a relatively small number of satellite-tagged seabirds, when combined with fishery-dependent data, can lead to identifying high-bycatch areas, particular fishing practices that might increase risk, and fishing communities that could be targeted for education/mitigation.

We describe a new collaborative network, the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (Motus; https://motus.org), which is an international network of researchers using coordinated automated radio-telemetry arrays to study movements of small flying organisms including birds, bats, and insects, at local, regional, and hemispheric scales. Radio-telemetry has been a cornerstone of tracking studies for over 50 years, and because of current limitations of geographic positioning systems (GPS) and satellite transmitters, has remained the primary means to track movements of small animals with high temporal and spatial precision. Automated receivers, along with recent miniaturization and digital coding of tags, have further improved the utility of radio-telemetry by allowing many individuals to be tracked continuously and simultaneously across broad landscapes. Motus is novel among automated arrays in that collaborators employ a single radio frequency across receiving stations over a broad geographic scale, allowing individuals to be detected at sites maintained by others. Motus also coordinates, disseminates, and archives detections and associated metadata in a central repository. Combined with the ability to track many individuals simultaneously, Motus has expanded the scope and spatial scale of research questions that can be addressed using radio-telemetry from local to regional and even hemispheric scales. Since its inception in 2012, more than 9000 individuals of over 87 species of birds, bats, and insects have been tracked, resulting in more than 250 million detections. This rich and comprehensive dataset includes detections of individuals during all phases of the annual cycle (breeding, migration, and nonbreeding), and at a variety of spatial scales, resulting in novel insights into the movement behavior of small flying animals. The value of the Motus network will grow as spatial coverage of stations and number of partners and collaborators increases. With continued expansion and support, Motus can provide a framework for global collaboration, and a coordinated approach to solving some of the most complex problems in movement biology and ecology.

Quantifying and managing the potential adverse wildlife impacts of offshore wind energy is critical for developing offshore wind energy in a sustainable and timely manner, but poses a significant challenge, particularly for small marine birds that are difficult to monitor. We developed a discrete-time Markov model of seabird movement around a colony site parameterized by automated radio telemetry data from common terns (Sterna hirundo) and Arctic terns (S. paradisaea), and derived impact functions that estimate the probability of collision fatality as a function of the distance and bearing of wind turbines from a colony. Our purpose was to develop and demonstrate a new, flexible tool that can be used for specific management and wind-energy planning applications when adequate data are available, rather than inform wind-energy development at this site. We demonstrate how the tool can be used 1) in marine spatial planning exercises to quantitatively identify setback distances under development scenarios given a risk threshold, 2) to examine the ecological and technical trade-offs of development alternatives to facilitate negotiation between objectives, and 3) in the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process to estimate collision fatality under alternative scenarios. We discuss model limitations and data needs, and highlight opportunities for future model extension and development. We present a highly flexible tool for wind energy planning that can be easily extended to other central place foragers and data sources, and can be updated and improved as new monitoring data arises.

Long-distance breeding dispersal is infrequent among seabirds and has rarely been quantified. Six adult Roseate Terns (Sterna dougallii) that had bred at colony sites in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, USA from 2004–2006 switched regions and moved 200–400 km to two colony sites in Maine between 2005 and 2007. Two of the emigrants presumably had nested for at least eight years in Massachusetts before moving to Maine, demonstrating that even long-time philopatric residents of one region may switch to another region.

From existing databases, we compiled and evaluated 604 total mercury (Hg) levels in the eggs and blood of 17 species of marine foraging birds from 35 Gulf of Maine islands to provide baseline data and to determine the best tissue, age class, and species for future biomonitoring. While mean Hg levels in most species did not exceed adverse effects thresholds, levels in some individual eggs did; for all species arithmetic mean egg Hg levels ranged from 0.04 to 0.62 (microg/g, wet weight). Piscivorous birds had higher Hg levels than invertivores. Leach's storm-petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa), razorbill (Alca torda), and black guillemot (Cepphus grylle) adult blood and egg Hg levels were higher than other species. Our results indicate that adult blood is preferable to chick blood for detecting long-term temporal trends because adult levels are higher and not confounded by metabolic effects. However, since we found that eggs and adult blood are comparable indicators of methylmercury bioavailability, we determined that eggs are the preferred tissue for long-term Hg monitoring because the relative ease in collecting eggs ensures consistent and robust datasets. We suggest specific sampling methods, and based on our results demonstrate that common eider (Somateria mollissima), Leach's storm-petrel, double-crested cormorant, and black guillemot are the most effective bioindicators of Hg of the Gulf of Maine.

We used capture–mark–recapture (or re-encounter) analysis of a metapopulation to estimate the probability of survival, re-encounter, and dispersal of Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) nesting in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. Before our study, there were only a few anecdotal accounts of breeding dispersal, and the only estimates of survival for this species were calculated in the 1950s and 1960s in the United Kingdom, using return rates unadjusted for recapture probability. Approximately 45% of the North American breeding population nests in the Gulf of Maine region; 95% of these nest on the four islands studied. Re-encounter observations of 2,295 adult Arctic Terns banded on these four key islands were collected from 1999 to 2005. An information-theoretic approach was used to determine the model best describing survival and movement patterns. Models using the program M-SURGE suggested that the apparent survival of adult Arctic Terns was colony- and year-specific, ranging from 0.704 to 0....