Atlantic Co-Operative Wildlife Ecology Research Network




Environmental determination of seabird distribution patterns off eastern and arctic Canada Falk Huettmann Ph.D. 2000 Collaborators: Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) Dartmouth (A. R. Lock, G. Howell, D. Nettleship) ABSTRACT Another component of the ACWERN seabird program is the large-scale study of the relationship between seabird distribution at sea and environmental parameters (Falk Huettmann's Ph.D. project). This study encompasses the entire marine ecosystem of the Northwest Atlantic, and follows logically from an earlier model of spatial distribution of energy demand by Diamond et al. (1993) and seabird distribution by Brown et al. (1975) using the uniquely extensive Canadian database of seabird counts called PIROP (Programme Intégré de Recherches sur les Oiseaux Pélagiques) owned by CWS. Falk is using Geographical Information System (GIS) technology, environmental databases from a variety of research agencies, spatial analysis techniques, based on the Splus software, and landscape ecology approaches to relate seabird distribution to environmental variables across scales. He is currently preparing manuscripts which will make up his thesis, and has reported regularly on his work in progress at a variety of international meetings, resulting in several peer-reviewed publications such as Huettmann and Lock 1997 about the new PIROP software, and winning several awards, e.g. a NASA-MSU student award. Other Ph.D. papers dealing with GIS-Modelling, seabird migration, seabird communities, seabird distribution in summer and winter, and an oceanographical re-classification of the study area are currently 'in press' or 'in review'. These papers will also provide data for the conservation of seabirds in the study area. Falk's serendipitous discovery of a major wintering area of Razorbills in the southern Bay of Fundy (Huettmann and Diamond 1998; Huettmann 1999), based on work also supported by contracts from CWS, was an unexpected, but very relevant, outcome of this work with major consequences for the biology and conservation of this vulnerable population. FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Canadian Wildlife Service, Atlantic Region PUBLICATIONS Huettmann F. and Diamond A.W. 2001. Seabird colony locations and environmental determination of seabird distribution: A spatially explicit seabird breeding model in the Northwest Atlantic. Ecological Modelling 141: 261-298. Huettmann, F. and A.W. Diamond 2001. Using PCA Scores to classify species communities: an example using seabird classifications at sea. Journal for Applied Statistics 28(7): 843 -853 Huettmann,F. and Diamond, A.W. 2000. Seabird migration in the Canadian North Atlantic: moulting locations and movement patterns of immatures. Canadian Journal of Zoology 78: 624-647. Hüettmann, F. and Lock, A.R. 1997. A new software system for the PIROP database: data flow and an approach for a seabird-depth analysis. ICES Journal of Marine Science 54:518-523. Huettmann, F., MacIntosh, K., Stevens, C., Dean, T. and Diamond, A.W. 2000. A large mid-winter observation of Bonaparte's Gull (Larus philadelphia) in Head Harbour Passage, New Brunswick. Canadian Field-Naturalist 114(2): 327-330. Read about Falk's post doctoral activities at Simon Fraser University. Falk is currently Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks Further information on Falk Huettmann's thesis, papers published and personal information.