Seabird Movement Reveals the Ecological Footprint of Fishing Vessels

Bodey, Thomas W., Jessopp, Mark J., Votier, Stephen C., Gerritsen, Hans D., Cleasby, Ian R., Hamer, Keith C., Patrick, Samantha C, Wakefield, Ewan D. and Bearhop, Stuart (2014) Seabird Movement Reveals the Ecological Footprint of Fishing Vessels. Current Biology, 24 (11). R514-R515. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.04.041

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Abstract

Exploitation of the seas is currently unsustainable, with increasing demand for marine resources placing intense pressure on the Earth's largest ecosystem [1]. The scale of anthropogenic effects varies from local to entire ocean basins [1-3]. For example, discards of commercial capture fisheries can have both positive and negative impacts on scavengers at the population and community-level [2-6], although this is driven by individual foraging behaviour [3,7]. Currently, we have little understanding of the scale at which individual animals initiate such behaviours. We use the known interaction between fisheries and a wide-ranging seabird, the Northern gannet Morus bassanus[3], to investigate how fishing vessels affect individual birds' behaviours in near real-time. We document the footprint of fishing vessels' (≥15 m length) influence on foraging decisions (≤11 km), and a potential underlying behavioural mechanism, by revealing how birds respond differently to vessels depending on gear type and activity. Such influences have important implications for fisheries, including the proposed discard ban [8]), and wider marine management.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The full text article is freely available via the publisher link below.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Morus bassanus, Fishing industry; REF2021
Related URLs:	Publisher Dataset
Subjects:	Q Science > QL Zoology > QL605 Chordates. Vertebrates > QL671-699 Birds
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education and Science
Research Priority Areas:	Place, Environment and Community
Depositing User:	Susan Turner
Date Deposited:	24 May 2016 08:52
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 08:59
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/3539

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