The 2016 round of formal meetings of the Albatross and Petrel Agreement is being held in the coastal city of La Serena, Chile over this and next week.

The Ninth Meeting of ACAP’s Advisory Committee (AC9) will be held next week over 9 – 13 May.  AC9 is being preceded by the Seventh Meeting of the AC’s Seabird Bycatch Working Group (SBSWG7) from today through to Wednesday.  It will be followed by the Third Meeting of the AC’s Population and Conservation Status Working Group on Thursday 5 and Friday 6 May.  The three meetings are being held at the beach-side Hotel Club La Serena.  La Serena lies 470 km north of Santiago, the capital of Chile.

Twenty-one of the SBSWG’s 27 expert members are attending the working group meeting along with 18 others present as observers or as members of the ACAP Secretariat.  SBSWG7 is being chaired by its Convener Anton Wolfaardt (UK), supported by Igor Debski (New Zealand) and Tatiana Neves (Brazil).  The Working Group’s Terms of Reference are also available online.

SBSWG7 gets underway

Marco Favero (Argentina) and Barry Baker (Australia) look towards the head table with Tatiana Neves, Anton Wolfaardt and Igor Debski facing the camera

Barbara Wienecke (Australia) discusses the day's proceedings with Anton Wolfaardt and Igor Debski 

Documents and Information Papers being discussed at SBSWG7 this week can be consulted online (click here).  Note that some of the papers are password-protected and so only their abstracts are available online.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 May 2106

Rémi Fay and colleagues (Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Villiers-en-Bois, France) have published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences on the effects of male and female parental ageing on the performance of offspring in Wandering Albatrosses Diomedea exulans.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Variability in demographic traits between individuals within populations has profound implications for both evolutionary processes and population dynamics.  Parental effects as a source of non-genetic inheritance are important processes to consider to understand the causes of individual variation.  In iteroparous species, parental age is known to influence strongly reproductive success and offspring quality, but consequences on an offspring fitness component after independence are much less studied.  Based on 37 years longitudinal monitoring of a long-lived seabird, the wandering albatross, we investigate delayed effects of parental age on offspring fitness components.  We provide evidence that parental age influences offspring performance beyond the age of independence.  By distinguishing maternal and paternal age effects, we demonstrate that paternal age, but not maternal age, impacts negatively post-fledging offspring performance.”

Read a news article on the publication here.

A 29-year old male Wandering Albatross and its downy chick on Marion Island, April 2005, photograph by John Cooper

Reference:

Fay, R., Barbraud, C., Delord, K. & Weimerskirch, H. 2016.  Paternal but not maternal age influences early-life performance of offspring in a long-lived seabird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 283 (1828) DOI:10.1098/rspb.2015.2318.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 April 2016

Jose Roscales (Department of Instrumental Analysis and Environmental Chemistry, Institute of Organic Chemistry, Madrid, Spain) and colleagues have published in the journal Environmental Research showing that overall Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) burdens in Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus decrease southwards across the Southern Ocean.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“Studies on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in Antarctic wildlife are scarce, and usually limited to a single locality.  As a result, wildlife exposure to POPs across the Southern Ocean is poorly understood.  In this study, we report the differential exposure of the major southern ocean scavengers, the giant petrels, to POPs across a wide latitudinal gradient.  Selected POPs (PCBs, HCB, DDTs, PBDEs) and related compounds, such as Dechlorane Plus (DP), were analyzed in plasma of southern giant petrels (Macronectes giganteus) breeding on Livingston (62°S 61°W, Antarctica), Marion (46°S 37°E, sub-Antarctic), and Gough (40°S 10°W, cool temperate) islands.   Northern giant petrels (Macronectes halli) from Marion Island were also studied.  Stable isotope ratios of C and N (δ13C and δ15N) were used as dietary tracers of the marine habitat and trophic level, respectively.  Breeding locality was a major factor explaining petrel exposure to POPs compared with species and sex.  Significant relationships between δ13C values and POP burdens, at both inter- and intra-population levels, support latitudinal variations in feeding grounds as a key factor in explaining petrel pollutant burdens.  Overall, pollutant levels in giant petrels decreased significantly with latitude, but the relative abundance (%) of the more volatile POPs increased towards Antarctica.  DP was found at negligible levels compared with legacy POPs in Antarctic seabirds.  Spatial POP patterns found in giant petrels match those predicted by global distribution models, and reinforce the hypothesis of atmospheric long-range transport as the main source of POPs in Antarctica.  Our results confirm that wildlife movements out of the polar region markedly increase their exposure to POPs.  Therefore, strategies for Antarctic wildlife conservation should consider spatial heterogeneity in exposure to marine pollution.  Of particular relevance is the need to clarify the exposure of Antarctic predators to emerging contaminants that are not yet globally regulated.”

Southern Giant Petrel on Gough Island, photograph by John Cooper

Reference:

Roscales, J.L., González-Solís, J., Zango, L., Ryan, P.G. & Jiménez, B. 2016.  Latitudinal exposure to DDTs, HCB, PCBs, PBDEs and DP in giant petrels (Macronectes spp.) across the Southern Ocean.  Environmental Research 148: 285-294.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 29 April 2016

Chris Gaskin (Kiwi Wildlife/Natural Lines Consultancy, Auckland, New Zealand) and colleagues have published a short note in the journal Notornis reporting sightings of Black Petrels Procellaria parkinsoni in the waters of the Galápagos in July 2014.

Black Petrel at sea, photograph by Biz Bell

Reference:

Gaskin, C.P., Harrison, P., Baird, K.A., Cunninghame, F., Ismar, S.F.H. & Bell, E.A. 2016.  An opportunistic sighting of a flock of black petrels (Procellaria parkinsoni) at Galápagos Islands, Ecuador.  Notornis 63: 54-56.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 28 April 2016