Global warming and arctic terns: Estimating climate change impacts on the world's longest migration.

Climate change is one of the top three global threats to seabirds, particularly species that visit polar regions. Arctic terns migrate between both polar regions annually and rely on productive marine areas to forage, on sea ice for rest and foraging, and prevailing winds during flight. Here, we report 21st-century trends in environmental variables affecting arctic terns at key locations along their Atlantic/Indian Ocean migratory flyway during the non-breeding seasons, identified through tracking data.

Variety in responses of wintering oystercatchers to near-collapse of their prey in the Exe Estuary, UK.

Globally, habitat loss or degradation is a major threat to many species, and those with specific habitat requirements are particularly vulnerable. Many species of wading birds (Charadrii) are dependent upon intertidal sites to feed, but, as a result of anthropogenic pressures, the prey landscape has changed at many estuaries. Behavioral adaptations may be able to buffer these changes.

Coastal radar as a tool for continuous and fine-scale monitoring of vessel activities of interest in the vicinity of marine protected areas.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely utilized for conservation of the world's marine resources. Yet, compliance with MPA regulations remains difficult to measure because of limits to human resources and a lack of affordable technologies to automate monitoring over time. The Marine Monitor, an autonomous vessel monitoring, recording, and reporting system leveraging commercial off-the-shelf X-band marine radar to detect and track vessels, was used to monitor five nearshore California MPAs simultaneously and continuously to identify and compare site-specific use patterns over one year.

Underwater noise mitigation in the Santa Barbara Channel through incentive-based vessel speed reduction.

Commercial shipping is the dominant source of low-frequency noise in the ocean. It has been shown that the noise radiated by an individual vessel depends upon the vessel's speed. This study quantified the reduction in source levels (SLs) and sound exposure levels (SELs) for ships participating in two variations of a vessel speed reduction (VSR) program.

Flight muscle and heart phenotypes in the high-flying ruddy shelduck.

Ruddy shelduck migrate from wintering grounds in lowland India and Myanmar to breeding grounds in central China and Mongolia, sustaining flight over the Himalayas, where oxygen availability is greatly reduced. We compared phenotypes of the pectoralis muscle and the ventricle of the heart from ruddy shelduck and common shelduck (a closely related low-altitude congener) that were raised in common conditions at sea level, predicting that oxidative capacity would be greater in ruddy shelduck to support high-altitude migration. Fibre-type composition of the pectoralis and the maximal activity of eight enzymes involved in mitochondrial energy metabolism in the pectoralis and heart, were compared between species.