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Incubation behaviour of Arctic terns under disturbance by humans and predators

The activity of people increased worldwide and has become an important source of disturbance to nesting birds even in a pristine environment of the polar regions. In this study, we focused on the correlation between disturbances and incubation behaviour of two Sterna species. By video surveillance o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar biology 2023-12, Vol.46 (12), p.1265
Main Authors: Hromádková, Tereza, Pavel, Václav, Weidinger, Karel
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:The activity of people increased worldwide and has become an important source of disturbance to nesting birds even in a pristine environment of the polar regions. In this study, we focused on the correlation between disturbances and incubation behaviour of two Sterna species. By video surveillance of nests on low-disturbance and high-disturbance sites we evaluated (i) whether the incubation behaviour of Arctic terns Sterna paradisaea in Svalbard differed between various levels of mostly anthropogenic (passing people) disturbances and (ii) whether the incubation behaviour of Antarctic terns Sterna vittata on the Antarctic Peninsula differed between various levels of mostly natural (predators) disturbances. We analysed whole-day continuous recordings (median length > 24 h) of 72 nests from four study sites. Incubation behaviour at high-disturbance sites was characterized by lower nest attentiveness, shorter on-bouts, and recurrent interruptions, whilst off-bout length remained mostly unchanged. The total time spent sleeping and average sleep-bout length were shorter, whilst the frequency of visual inspection of the surroundings was higher at high-disturbance sites. In all, the responses of incubating terns to human disturbance did not exceed those induced by native predators. The behavioural responses, as measured by the direction and size of effects, were remarkably consistent for both species, representing the two polar regions with different natural predation risks as well as a different history of human impacts. Unless there are specific long-term costs associated with human disturbance that we cannot evaluate here, the coexistence of people and breeding terns might be sustainable even in the polar regions.
ISSN:0722-4060
DOI:10.1007/s00300-023-03199-5