Seabirds and climate change: Roadmap for the future

Abstract

Based in part on a symposium held at the first World Seabird Conference in September, 2010 in Victoria, BC, Canada, we present a Theme Section (TS) on the topic of seabirds and climate change. We introduce this TS with a meta-analysis of key attributes of the current seabird-climate literature, based on 108 publications representing almost 3000 seabird- climate associations (mostly correlations) published up to 2011. Using the papers in this TS and our metaanalysis, a brief roadmap for the future of seabird-climate change research is presented. Seabird studies have contributed substantially to the literature on marine climate effects. To improve our understanding of climate change effects on seabirds at the global scale, however, additional lowlatitude, mechanistic, and 'end-to-end' modeling studies, including integration of climatic, oceanographic, food web, and population dynamics models, should be conducted. This approach will enhance our understanding of the relationship between climate and population dynamics, and facilitate seabird conservation in a changing world. © Inter-Research 2012.