A change in the diet of seabirds may be making them less intelligent and lowering their chances of survival, say University of Alaska researchers.
Alexander Kitaysky said he used lab experiments to mimic changes observed in the diets of kittiwakes in the Bering Sea, changes probably caused by a warming ocean, reported the BBC Friday.
The population of the red-legged kittiwakes on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska has roughly halved over the last two decades.
"Ecosystems started to change; one of the most pronounced changes was that high-lipid fish such as capelin declined, and were replaced in the kittiwake diet by species such as juvenile pollock, which are poor in lipids," Kitaysky told the BBC.
The cause of the dietary changes may be related to climate change, with rising temperatures documented in the Bering Sea at that period perhaps driving the movements of fish populations, Kitaysky said.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
Related stories:
Arctic sea ice annual freeze-up underway
After reaching the second-lowest extent ever recorded last month, sea ice in the Arctic has begun to refreeze in the face of autumn temperatures, closing both the Northern Sea Route and the direct route through the Northwest Passage.
NASA data show Arctic saw fastest August sea ice retreat on record
Following a record-breaking season of arctic sea ice decline in 2007, NASA scientists have kept a close watch on the 2008 melt season. Although the melt season did not break the record for ice loss, NASA data are showing that for a four-week period in August 2008, sea ice melted faster during that period than ever before.
Biologists hope to kill all of Rat Island's rats
Just one tiny misstep, one goof, and years of planning a $3 million wildlife project will be worthless. Last week, a crew of 18 left Homer aboard the crabber Reliance, bound for little Rat Island at the end of the Aleutian chain on a mission of devastation.
Successful series of measurements in Arctic sea ice
The German Research Vessel Polarstern had to prove its ice breaking capabilities in Arctic waters to gain data on two series of long-term research measurements. After working in regions up to latitude 82° N, Polarstern of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association will enter port in Reykjavik (Iceland) on August 10th.
Pacific shellfish ready to invade Atlantic
As the Arctic Ocean warms this century, shellfish, snails and other animals from the Pacific Ocean will resume an invasion of the northern Atlantic that was interrupted by cooling conditions three million years ago, predict Geerat Vermeij, professor of geology at the University of California, Davis, and Peter Roopnarine at the California Academy of Sciences.
Rewriting Greenland's immigration history
The first immigrants in Greenland were not Indians from the North American continent or Canadian Inuit as previously suggested. And it is not just a question of revising the Greenlandic immigration history. The discovery is the world's first successful attempt to sequence an entire mitochondrial genome from an extinct human.
Scientists discover stinging truths about jellyfish blooms in the Bering Sea
A new study helps explain a cyclic increase and decrease of jellyfish populations, which transformed parts of the Bering Sea--one of the U.S.'s most productive fisheries--into veritable jellytoriums during the 1990s.
New evidence from earliest known human settlement in the Americas
New evidence from the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile confirms its status as the earliest known human settlement in the Americas and provides additional support for the theory that one early migration route followed the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago.