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ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil Advance Access originally published online on September 23, 2008
ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2008 65(8):1520-1526; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn155
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© 2008 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following ICES Journal of Marine Science issue: Marine Environmental Indicators: Utility in Meeting Regulatory Needs [View the issue table of contents]

Seabirds as indicators of the marine environment

Matt Parsons1, Ian Mitchell1, Adam Butler2, Norman Ratcliffe3, Morten Frederiksen4, Simon Foster5 and James B. Reid1

1 Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Dunnet House, 7 Thistle Place, Aberdeen AB10 1UZ, Scotland, UK
2 Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, The King’s Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, Scotland, UK
3 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, East Scotland Regional Office, 10 Albyn Terrace, Aberdeen AB10 1YP, Scotland, UK
4 Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Hill of Brathens, Banchory, Aberdeenshire AB31 4BW, Scotland, UK
5 Scottish Natural Heritage, Great Glen House, Leachkin Road, Inverness IV3 8NW, Scotland, UK

Correspondence to M. Parsons: tel: +44 1224 655715; fax: +44 1224 621488; e-mail: matt.parsons{at}jncc.gov.uk

Parsons, M., Mitchell, I., Butler, A., Ratcliffe, N., Frederiksen, M., Foster, S., and Reid, J. B. 2008. Seabirds as indicators of the marine environment. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 1520–1526.

We report on the development of seabird indicators that support the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy. The application of high-quality monitoring data on breeding abundance and productivity in Scotland was explored in three ways: as indicators of seabird status in its own right, as indicators of the "health" of the marine environment, and as indicators of the food supply of vertebrate predators. Data on breeding productivity of seabirds, which responds more immediately to environmental variation than adult abundance, provided a novel supplement to indicators based solely on abundance trends. Grouping of species according to ecological guilds provided indicators of change in particular aspects of the marine environment. The role of seabird indicators in relation to policy frameworks is discussed, with a look to further developments at the UK and regional scales.

Keywords: abundance, food supply, indicator, marine health, principal components analysis, productivity, sandeel, seabirds

Received 23 November 2007; accepted 22 June 2008; advance access publication 23 September 2008.


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