Seabird Clues to Ecosystem Health | Data for Ocean Health through Birds

Sea Birds cruising through the surface of Ocean

Humans have used seabird sightings and behavior as indicators of conditions of the marine environment.

In recent decades, seabird breeding and feeding observations have revealed the connection between sea surface temperatures in upwelling regions.

Coordinated efforts to gather standardized seabird data will be essential for monitoring the health of the global ocean.

Seabirds are sentinels in two ways. First, they can serve as biomonitors of ecosystem-scale changes, such as the presence of organic pollutants or heavy metals in their tissues and marine litter such as plastics and microplastics in their stomachs.

Second, they can be quantitative indicators of ecosystem components such as fish abundance. Excessive fishing can also contribute to seabird distribution shifts and population decline when seabirds and fishers compete for the same resource.

Data loggers (small devices deployed on wild animals to record or transmit environmental and physiological data) can play a key role in this effort by providing information such as foraging area, water temperature, or diving depth.

It is unclear how quickly different seabird species will be able to adapt to rapidly changing environmental conditions, but, like sentinels of the health of the global ocean, they are clearly providing a warning of the drastic effects that this fast pace of changes is having on marine species worldwide. We have a chance to use the knowledge provided by seabirds to make the right decisions to prevent the loss of biodiversity and at the same time develop sustainable ways to harvest it.