Terrestrial and Marine Foraging Strategies of an Opportunistic Seabird Species Breeding in the Wadden Sea.

Lesser black-backed gulls Larus fuscus are considered to be mainly pelagic. We assessed the importance of different landscape elements (open sea, tidal flats and inland) by comparing marine and terrestrial foraging behaviours in lesser black-backed gulls breeding along the coast of the southern North Sea. We attached GPS data loggers to eight incubating birds and collected information on diet and habitat use.

Assessment of contaminant levels and trophic relations at a World Heritage Site by measurements in a characteristic shorebird species.

The River Elbe is responsible for influxes of contaminants into the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site. We investigated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), oxychlordane (OxC), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), hexachlorocyclohexanes (α-, β-, γ-HCHs), dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolites, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in blood and feathers from Eurasian oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus; n = 28) at the Elbe and compared it with a non-riverine site about 90 km further north. (1) Mean levels of all contaminants in feathers and serum were significantly higher at the river (∑PCBs: 27.

Analysis of blood gases, serum fat and serum protein: a new approach to estimate survival chances of stranded Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) pups from the German North Sea.

Background: Facing numerous challenges, such as illness, storms or human disturbance, some harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) pups lose contact to their dams and are found abandoned along the North Sea coast. In Schleswig-Holstein, pups with the prospect of surviving rehabilitation are admitted to the Seal Center Friedrichskoog. Despite elaborate clinical health assessments on admission, including differential hematology, in 2010, 17% of 108 admitted pups did not survive the first 20 days.

A comparison of relative abundance versus class data in diatom-based quantitative reconstructions.

Relative species abundances are the most frequently applied data type used for modern or paleolimnological diatom studies. In contrast, plant ecologists save time by commonly using ordinal scale data (class data), where the abundance of a species is estimated using dominance classes, instead of relative abundance data. This study compares the performance of models based on ordinal diatom species class data (class 1: sporadic (<0-1%) up to class 6: dominant (>60%)) with similar model types based on relative abundance data for different regional training sets and sediment cores.