Coastal Seas Ecology: Current Research

CEH's research is currently focused on a number of related research projects:

Long-term seabird studies

The Isle of May is one of four key UK seabird monitoring sites supported by the JNCC (Joint Nature Conservation Committee). CEH has an on-going contract to collect basic data on adult survival, breeding success and diet: the data feed into the national Seabird Monitoring Programme network. The Isle of May long-term study (IMLOTS) also forms part of CEH's network of monitoring sites for evaluating the effects of climate change. Coastal ecosystems are subject to large and complex climate-related changes, sometimes in the form of sudden shifts from one state to another. Our long-term data on top predators are being used to monitor and understand these changes in two ways: firstly by relating aspects of seabird performance (e.g. foraging success, timing of breeding and breeding success, adult survival) to physical and biological environmental factors operating at various spatial and temporal scales; and secondly by using seabirds to sample the environment and collect data on the physical characteristics of coastal seas, prey abundance and size.

Seabirds and climate change

Like all components of marine food webs, seabirds are affected by ongoing and future climate change. Both fish and the plankton they feed on have shown clear changes in distribution, abundance and seasonal cycles, and this is bound to affect top predators like seabirds. Our unique long-term data allow us to disentangle climate effects from all the other factors affecting seabird populations, and we can also use data collected from seabirds to monitor effects on the marine environment in general. Read more about our climate change research.

Coastal environment, seabirds and their prey

Recently, the Coastal Seas Ecology group was a major player in an EU Framework Five project, looking at the interactions between the coastal environment, seabird predators and prey (IMPRESS). The project took a bottom-up approach in identifying the key oceanographic drivers of prey availability to seabirds. An important component was the use of miniaturised, state-of-the-art loggers attached to birds and providing extremely detailed information on seabird foraging dynamics. This approach also provided 3-D data on hydrography in coastal areas at greater spatial and temporal resolution and lower cost than achieved by conventional boat-based surveys, and it clearly offers enormous potential to study hydrodynamics in coastal regions.

Marine Protected Areas

Marine Protected Areas are a potential management option for safeguarding populations of targeted species and associated top predators. Decisions on the size and location of MPAs have been hindered by lack of data on the behaviour and mobility of the targeted species and ecosystem processes, including functional relationships with top predators. Closed areas are a particularly attractive management option for sedentary, short-lived species that are subject to a directed fishery, because protected habitats support all age classes and recovery is more rapid than with long-lived species. As part of EU Framework VI project Protect, we have been examing whether the sandeel closure off eastern Scotland has improved the breeding success of seabirds.

Nutrient cycling in coastal ecosystems

Seabirds play an important role in the nutrient cycling of remote coastal ecosystems by transferring nitrogen from the marine to the land environment. In the past, most attention has focussed on direct local effects of seabird deposits, but recent work by CEH at Edinburgh and the Coastal Seas Ecology group (as part of the GANE thematic programme) has shown that ammonia evaporation from excreta is also very important. Measurements of atmospheric ammonia around seabird colonies (taken by boat) show that emissions are substantially larger than those generated by human activities at point sources such as poultry farms. Seabird colonies are often in remote areas that have previously been considered pristine because of the lack of human activities there. Clearly this view is too simplistic and the local and regional effects of seabird-derived ammonia need to be taken into account.

Seabird pathogens

The Coastal Seas Ecology group and other colleagues from CEH collaborate to understand the mechanisms that maintain pathogen diversity using Great Island Virus as a study organism. Great Island Virus is a tick-borne virus, found globally, that infects seabirds. It can appear in a variety of genetic and physical forms. Work on the Isle of May established that Great Island Virus is chiefly supported by ticks feeding on common guillemots. There is no evidence that infection affects adult death rates, but it may have subtle effects on breeding success. We obtain samples of Great Island Virus from ticks in seabird colonies throughout the UK and worldwide, to allow us to acquire sequence data that is representative of the entire genome of each virus isolate - across a large geographical scale. On the Isle of May, we will assess the impact of virus infection on seabird mortality and breeding success, and estimate parameters such as the duration of infection and the efficiency of virus transmissions.