Gene expression provides mechanistic insights into a viral disease in seabirds.

Wild animals are exposed to a variety of anthropogenic stressors that may result in loss of physiological homeostasis. One main consequence of this stress exposure is the increased vulnerability to pathogens. We addressed the hypothesis that energetic unbalance and alterations of immune effectors are key proximate mechanisms underlying this vulnerability, by quantifying the gene expression of magnificent frigatebird Fregata magnificens chicks affected by a highly lethal viral disease, whose appearance is favoured by food limitation in this species.

Physiological effects of PFAS exposure in seabird chicks: A multi-species study of thyroid hormone triiodothyronine, body condition and telomere length in South Western France.

There is growing evidence that poly and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure leads to the disruption of thyroid hormones including thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), and may affect telomeres, repetitive nucleotide sequences which protect chromosome ends. Many seabird species are long-lived top predators thus exhibit high contaminant levels, and PFAS-disrupting effects on their physiology have been documented especially in relation to the endocrine system in adults. On the contrary, studies on the developmental period (i.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going: Effect of extreme climate on an Antarctic seabird's life history.

Individuals differ in many ways. Most produce few offspring; a handful produce many. Some die early; others live to old age.

High levels of fluoroalkyl substances and potential disruption of thyroid hormones in three gull species from South Western France.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) raised increasing concerns over the past years due to their persistence and global distribution. Understanding their occurrence in the environment and their disruptive effect on the physiology of humans and wildlife remains a major challenge in ecotoxicological studies. Here, we investigate the occurrence of several carboxylic and sulfonic PFAS in 105 individuals of three seabird species (27 great black-backed gull Larus marinus; 44 lesser black-backed gull Larus fuscus graellsii; and 34 European herring gull Larus argentatus) from South western France.

Meeting Paris agreement objectives will temper seabird winter distribution shifts in the North Atlantic Ocean.

We explored the implications of reaching the Paris Agreement Objective of limiting global warming to <2°C for the future winter distribution of the North Atlantic seabird community. We predicted and quantified current and future winter habitats of five North Atlantic Ocean seabird species (Alle alle, Fratercula arctica, Uria aalge, Uria lomvia and Rissa tridactyla) using tracking data for ~1500 individuals through resource selection functions based on mechanistic modeling of seabird energy requirements, and a dynamic bioclimate envelope model of seabird prey. Future winter distributions were predicted to shift with climate change, especially when global warming exceed 2°C under a "no mitigation" scenario, modifying seabird wintering hotspots in the North Atlantic Ocean.

From early life to senescence: individual heterogeneity in a long-lived seabird.

Although population studies have long assumed that all individuals of a given sex and age are identical, ignoring among-individual differences may strongly bias our perception of eco-evolutionary processes. Individual heterogeneity, often referred to as individual quality, has received increasing research attention in the last decades. However, there are still substantial gaps in our current knowledge.

Contrasting effects of climate and population density over time and life stages in a long-lived seabird.

Although population responses to environmental variability have been extensively studied for many organisms, few studies have considered early-life stages owing to the inherent difficulties in tracking the fate of young individuals. However, young individuals are expected to be more sensitive to environmental stochasticity owing to their inexperience and lower competitive abilities. Thus, they are keys to understand demographic responses of an age-structured population to environmental variability.

Behavioural, ecological and evolutionary responses to extreme climatic events: challenges and directions.

More extreme climatic events (ECEs) are among the most prominent consequences of climate change. Despite a long-standing recognition of the importance of ECEs by paleo-ecologists and macro-evolutionary biologists, ECEs have only recently received a strong interest in the wider ecological and evolutionary community. However, as with many rapidly expanding fields, it lacks structure and cohesiveness, which strongly limits scientific progress.

Reproductive success is driven by local site fidelity despite stronger specialisation by individuals for large-scale habitat preference.

There is widespread evidence that within populations, specialists and generalists can coexist and this is particularly prevalent in marine ecosystems, where foraging specialisations are evident. While individuals may limit niche overlap by consistently foraging in specific areas, site fidelity may also emerge as an artefact of habitat choice, but both drivers and fitness consequences of site fidelity are poorly understood. Here, we examine an individual metric of site and habitat fidelity, using tracking data collected over 11 years for black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris).

Variation in the age of first reproduction: different strategies or individual quality?

Although age at first reproduction is a key demographic parameter that is probably under high selective pressure, it is highly variable and the cause of this variability is not well understood. Two non-exclusive hypotheses may explain such variability. It could be the expression of different individual strategies, i.

Paternal but not maternal age influences early-life performance of offspring in a long-lived seabird.

Variability in demographic traits between individuals within populations has profound implications for both evolutionary processes and population dynamics. Parental effects as a source of non-genetic inheritance are important processes to consider to understand the causes of individual variation. In iteroparous species, parental age is known to influence strongly reproductive success and offspring quality, but consequences on an offspring fitness component after independence are much less studied.

Population density and climate shape early-life survival and recruitment in a long-lived pelagic seabird.

1. Our understanding of demographic processes is mainly based on analyses of traits from the adult component of populations. Early-life demographic traits are poorly known mainly for methodological reasons.