PhD Marine Ecology - 'Critical foraging locations and oceanographic relationships for Great Barrier Reef breeding seabirds'

Conferred 7 April 2016.

My PhD in Marine Ecology aimed to determine the environmental and trophic mechanisms which regulate the distribution, abundance and availability of prey to pelagic foraging seabirds of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), by understanding foraging behavior and movement patterns.

 

Seabirds, being accessible, easy to capture and with the ability to track large populations, are ideal taxa to sample the otherwise remote marine environment. 

Three spatio-temporal foraging scales of wedge-tailed shearwaters. Foraging grounds during migration (black), breeding (self-provisioning in the Coral Sea; blue) and chick-provisioning (near-colony; red).
Three spatio-temporal foraging scales of wedge-tailed shearwaters. Foraging grounds during migration (black), breeding (self-provisioning in the Coral Sea; blue) and chick-provisioning (near-colony; red).

 Non-breeding migration to the tropical northern hemisphere.

 

Breeding (dual-foraging pattern): Self-provisioning in distant Coral Sea locations and chick-provisioning near the colony.

 

*see Publications list for papers on near-colony, distant and migratory foraging environments. oceanographic influences. 

Results contribute to:

My results have contributed directly to management and conservation actions on the Great Barrier Reef including identification of Marine Important Bird Areas and determining management priorities.

 These data and outcomes contribute to larger datasets that formulate interpretations of how climate-change is impacting multiple seabirds and apex predators of the GBR and tropical marine systems, and the reproductive success and survivorship of these populations.

Techniques & methods

* Movement analysis is the future of broad-scale scientific research and these techniques are widely applicable and usable across taxa and ecosystems.

 

I identified and mapped flight paths and foraging grounds during breeding and non-breeding periods by electronically tracking hundreds of foraging adults with GPS, PTT Satellite transmitters and GLS. 

In addition, I quantified the physical characteristics of critical foraging areas for these species with extensive remotely-sensed oceanographic data (including oceanic productivity, bathymetry, sea-surface temperatures (SSTs), sea-surface height (SSH), anomalies, the presence of oceanic frontal systems or eddies, water quality, currents and various topographic features (shelves, seamounts, steep bathymetry). 

 

Oceanographic data in various file formats (HDF, netCDF, CSV) were downloaded, formatted, imported, classified, mapped and analyzed with ArcGIS, using MGET, GME, XTools, Hawth's Tools, and R statistical software.