Circular No. 2 for ACAP’s 8th Advisory Committee and associated Working Group meetings to be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay over 8-19 September 2014 is now available (click here).

Draft AC8 Agenda

A draft agenda for the 8th Meeting of the Advisory Committee (AC8) is now available from the ACAP Secretariat.  In accordance with Rule 17(4) it is requested that Parties advise the Secretariat by 15 June 2014 of any new items they would like to have added to the agenda.  Draft agendas for the preceding Working Group meetings are also available for the information of delegates attending those meetings, as well as a document list for AC8.

Document Templates

Templates (click here) for meeting documents are available to assist in the preparation of papers for AC8 and Working Group meetings.  It would be appreciated if these templates could be used when submitting documents to the Secretariat.

In order to contain translation costs and facilitate the reading of documents in non-native languages, it would be appreciated if the length of meeting documents could be kept to a minimum.  In the case of working documents, please consider submitting supporting information in an information paper, rather than in the body of the document itself.

Submission of Meeting Documents

A reminder that meeting documents requiring translation (working documents) are to be submitted to the Secretariat no later than 15 July 2014 in order that they may be distributed in the three official languages 30 days in advance of the meeting.  All other AC8 meeting documents and Working Group documents must be submitted by 1 August 2014.  Meeting documents will not be accepted after these dates.

Meeting Registration

Parties, Non-Party Range States and Observers are reminded that details of their representatives must be provided to the Secretariat prior to the meeting (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

Transfers Montevideo Airport – Punta del Este

Regular bus services are available to take delegates direct from Montevideo Airport to Punta del Este. Further information on the bus service and other logistical arrangements kindly provided by our hosts are available from the Secretariat.

Information concerning social events and additional meeting details will be provided in AC8 Meeting Circular No. 3.

A Tristan Albatross off Uruguay, photograph by Martin Abreu

Warren Papworth, Executive Secretary, ACAP Secretariat, 03 May 2014

Antje Chiu Werner (Departamento de Ornitología, Museo de Historia Natural “Javier Prado,” Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru) and colleagues have published in the ornithological journal Auk on differences in the at-sea foraging behaviour of male and female Cory's Shearwater Calonectris borealis in relation to nest quality.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“An extended reproductive period and high variability in food resource availability at sea make good quality nest sites particularly important for the survival of pelagic seabird chicks.  Despite high philopatry during the early pre-laying period, males compete strongly for nests, making this period a unique opportunity to independently assess the influence of nest-site characteristics and individual quality on the foraging behavior of Cory's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea borealis) individuals.  We found significant differences in the at-sea foraging behavior of males and females at temporal (trip duration) and spatial (foraging areas, trip distance, and trip sinuosity) scales, both of which are greater in females.  Furthermore, we suggest that nests of higher quality are deeper and closer to the nest of a conspecific neighbor because both variables were associated with males foraging closer to the colony.  Finally, we showed that during the early pre-laying period the influence exerted by nests on males' behavior at sea is independent from the individual's quality.  Our study links nest-site features with the at-sea behavior of pelagic male seabirds during a period of nest competition and suggests that nest-site characteristics are important to explain foraging patterns of central-place foraging birds.”

A pair of Cory's Shearwaters, photograph by Paulo Catry

Reference:

Chiu Werner, A., Paiva, V.H. & Ramos, J.A. 2014.  On the “real estate market”: individual quality and the foraging ecology of male Cory's Shearwaters.  Auk 131:  265-274.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 02 May 2014

North Foreland is an ice-free headland on the northern coast of King George Island, the largest of the South Shetland Islands off the Antarctic Peninsula.  It forms the northernmost extremity of the island.

The headland has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) with an area of 151 ha by BirdLife International for its large colony of c. 23 000 pairs of Chinstrap Penguins Pygoscelis antarctica.

ACAP-listed Southern Giant Petrels Macronectes giganteus breed on the headland on rocky ice-free ground.  A visit on 13 February 2012 by Tobias Guetter yielded a count of 279 nests thought to have been used in the current season and 128 chicks in 23 breeding groups (range 1-50 nests).  Of these totals five nests with one chick were recorded as being on an island.

A total of 248 pairs was recorded in 1966, suggesting a level of stability for this Least Concern species.

With thanks to Christina Braun and Tobias Guetter, both of the University of Jena, Germany, for information and photographs.

Selected Literature:

Patterson, D.L., Woehler, E.J., Croxall, J.P., Cooper, J., Poncet, S., Peter, H.-U., Hunter, S. & Fraser, M.W. 2008.  Breeding distribution and population status of the Northern Giant Petrel Macronectes halli and Southern Giant Petrel M. giganteus.  Marine Ornithology 36: 115-124 and appendix.

Peter, H.-U., Kaiser, M. & Gebauer, A. 1991.  Breeding ecology of the southern giant petrels Macronectes giganteus on King George Island (South Shetland Islands, Antarctic).  Zoologisches Jahrbuch Systematik 118: 465-477.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 01 May 2014

Maite Louzao (Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Xixón, Spain) and colleagues have published open-access in the journal Movement Ecology on foraging strategy of the Wandering Albatross Diomedea exulans.

The paper’s abstract follows:

“How foragers move across the landscape to search for resources and obtain energy is a central issue in ecology. Direct energetic quantification of animal movements allows for testing optimal foraging theory predictions which assumes that animals forage so as to maximise net energy gain.  Thanks to biologging advances, we coupled instantaneous energy-budget models and behavioural mode analysis to test optimal foraging theory predictions on wandering albatross Diomedea exulans during the brooding period.   Specifically, the instantaneous energy-budget model considered the energetic balance (i.e., the difference between empirical energy gain data and modelled energy expenditure via heart rate values) along the trajectory of a given individual.  Four stereotypic instantaneous behavioural modes were identified based on trajectory properties (e.g., speed and turning angle) by applying a new algorithm called Expectation Maximization Binary Clustering.  Previous studies on this species have shown that foraging-in-flight is the optimal foraging strategy during the incubation period when albatrosses undertake long-distance movements but no specific foraging strategy has been determined for shorter foraging movements (e.g., brooding period).”

A Wanderer at sea, photograph by John Chardine

With thanks to Maite Louzao for information.

Reference:

Maite Louzao, M., Wiegand, T., Bartumeus, F. & Weimerskirch, H. 2014.  Coupling instantaneous energy-budget models and behavioural mode analysis to estimate optimal foraging strategy: an example with wandering albatrosses.  Movement Ecology doi:10.1186/2051-3933-2-8.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 30 May 2014