[BLANK_AUDIO] Hi folks welcome to a short video lecture on a Basics of Seabird Biology essentially a Seabird Biology Primary.

Okay so in this lecture I want you guys to be able to afterwards to be able to identify the basic body parts of birds, so what their, their basic body plan is. I want you to be able to recall some of the characteristics of seabird life history. So how they how they live their lives from being born to old age and death. And I want to be, you to be able to describe some of the specific adaptations that seabirds have to facilitate flying, in particular understanding a little bit about how their wings work. And then also I want you to be able to recall the advantages and disadvantages of colonial living, okay. So because most seabirds tend to be colonial, right. So let's just take a look at the basic body plan for a seabird. As you all know, birds have feathers and they also have scales and so their feathers are, are distributed around their body to help keep them streamlined and help provide lift when they fly. And they also have scales, often around their face and certainly on their legs that protect them. Birds have wings, even the flightless birds. And they have pneumatic bones, so bones that are hollow. They're filled with air. Birds don't have teeth, which is an important consideration for thinking about what they eat, and birds reproduce via eggs. Okay? So these are the basics of of seabird body form, and a little bit about their reproduction. So, thinking about how animals live their lives. We're going to talk in this course a little bit about the life history of animals and, and life history of animals is essentially the, the history of changes that an

organism undergoes from inception or conception, so when it's, it starts its life to death and all the changes and things that go on. Okay, and so there are various aspects to life history. This is things like how, how many young they produce, how often they reproduce. A whole series of parameters about animals. And so, for example, here in this picture, we have a black footed Albatross and a chick and so a part of the Albatross life history is how many chicks they have per year, how many they would have in their lifetime. And have at what point in time they would actually start laying eggs and raising chicks. So, those are aspects of life history. In terms of sea birds. Sea birds tend to have very long lives, They live 20 to 60 years, which is quite a long time. And they tend to have deferred maturity, so they don't actually start breeding until later on in life. Some cases ten years and some times it takes a long time for the animals to choose partners. They tend to have small clutches. Many seabirds only lay one egg, and sometimes they lay two, our auks and penguins tend to do that. And they often will spend a fair bit of time actually investing in that individual chick or the two chicks that they, that they lay, that have hatched from their eggs. In some cases, that can last for up to six months. And because of these things, they tend to have relatively slow population growth, which makes them vulnerable to human activities, okay? So those are basic for our seabird life histories. Move on and talk a little bit about flight. So, flight is an important aspect for seabirds. While they require a terrestrial platform,

to be able to, rest, and lay their or to reproduce. they. They have the ability to access essentially all of the ocean through flight. And so seabirds actually vary in their efficiency and performance and this actually constrains their foraging behavior and and, and essentially dictates where they can and can't go. So there are kind of three different sort of forms, we have our albatrosses which are soarers. They tend to spend a lot of time flying when it's windy, they can take advantage of that using their very large wings. And at the other end of the spectrum is the puffin, which really is essentially partakes in power flight, flapping all the time, not nearly as elegant a soarer as the albatross and then we have the penguins, which actually fly underwater. And and flight is a key characteristic, as you would think, because it allows them to move away from colonies, places where they live, for foraging. It allows them to return to find their mates for reproduction. And it's a key thing for being able to avoid predators as well. Okay? So flight, key aspect for seabird biology, which pretty much makes sense. So when we think about flight, there's some pretty important basic physics that you should think about. When we take a look at our animals. And so, here we have a diagram of an albatross and a puffin. Okay. And and sea, the flight of the seabirds is essentially constrained by physics. There's two things that we should remember about the structure of seabirds and their wings. One is a wing load, which is essentially how much wing area they have in relationship to their mass. See birds tend to be quite light, and they

tend to have large wings. So this is very, make them very efficient. And in the top case, with the albatross silhouette, you can see that it has a lot of wing area and very small body. Which provides for that a favorable wing load. And the other thing to think about is, is the relationship of the width of the wings to its breadth, and that's referred to as aspect ratio. That essentially helps describe the performance of the wings. So, wings that have high aspect ratios provide excellent lift but tend to have lower maneuverability, and so they are often found in animals that take part in soaring flight like albatross. At the bottom. Our, our puffin there has a very low aspect ratio and and so it has reduced lift but also provides for high maneuverability and really is used for powered flight. And, in fact, this puffin, it actually spends a lot of time underwater as well, where having large wings would be be very difficult to to control. Especially when it would be diving into the water. In contrast, albatross tend to sit at the surface and pluck food from the, from the the surface and they're not Paradon birds. Alright, so that's basics for flight. Let's talk now a little bit about colonial living, alright. So, sea birds are very gregarious, they're often found in large colonies and those colonies can form, on essentially any habitat. It's one of the things that I'm always amazed by when we travel in places like the Antarctic, where we find penguin colonies. Way up the sides of cliffs and mountains and it's amazing to think how those birds got up there because they're not flying. But colonies will form on essentially any habitat, cliffs, hillsides, beaches and colon, these colonies can be found, depending on species, around the world. You can find colonies toward the poles, at very high latitudes. You can find colonies of seabirds at the

equators, the equator. And and so I have some some good video of a seabird colony at Midway Atoll that I want to share with you guys now. And so, here's a a little map that illustrates where Midway is. And here's our, our Laysan Albatross coming up and, and visiting us. And this is essentially what happens when you come and sit down in the middle of a seabird colony, okay? And so the video shifted now and you can actually see how abundant these animals are in the colony and how dispersed they are, so they're spread out. And you can see there are groups of animals that are socializing. Some animals are just resting and some are preening themselves. These are all aspects of colonial living that are important to these birds to facilitate social activity, which is important. You can see animals come and going from the colony. This next section of the video actually illustrates some of the social behavior that's facilitated by living in a colony. These are groups of Laysan albatross that are actually dancing with each other, trying to figure out who they might want to partner with for reproduction. And so the, one of the important aspects of living in a colony is access, is having accessibility to your fellow birds. So, colonial living can be really good. It's really important because you know, not all habitat is actually the right kind of habitat. And so, when habitat is limited, this is, it's important to be able to make use of it and so colonies help in that sense. actually, and there's also strength in numbers and so being in a colony provides some defense against some predators. And that birds may work together to be able to repel predators that are coming in to either take their eggs or maybe eat their chicks. That, one of the most important things is it facilitates the social activities.

So it allows animals to find mates the right time. It also allows them to be able to interact with animals and, and, and choose the right mate. And, and all of these things are really advantageous when you consider them over the lifes, over the lifespan of these individual birds. They live for long periods of time and, and actually invest a lot of time and effort in choosing their partners and raising their young. So, however, colonial living can also be bad so for example, if you're all in one place, then competition for food might actually be, near the colony might be really high. So many animals that live in colonies tend to disperse for foraging, okay? Because there just would not necessarily be enough food for them nearby to be able to survive. it, it also allows for the co-evolution of things like parasites that also live with those colonies and that's a, a, a problem in some cases. And one of the other problems that we have is that, things like invasive species. Their effects can be very dramatic. So in situations where the animals are not, have never been exposed to that particular invasive species. then, colonies can be hit really hard by, for example, rats is a really good one for many seabird species. and, and they're also vulnerable to human activities as well. And so I love this picture here, on the right. This is a picture that illustrates the, the harvest of eggs from Laksan albatross, from the island of Laksan. Wheelbarrows full of eggs. And, there's an albatross sitting right in front of there that, you know, is, is essentially undeterred in its nesting there by the, the scale of, of egging going on around it. And so, we have to consider that co, colonies are vulnerable to unpredictable events, maybe

environmental effects, but also human effects and that's a problem. it, that may be a problem for some species that tend to live in colonies. So. Colonial living is good but it also has its drawbacks. So, in summary, I want you guys to remember that seabirds tend to have a standard body plan regardless of their approach to life. And that their life histories focus on long term success. So they spend a lot of time and effort investing in their young and they take their time. clearly, colonial living has helped seabirds thrive many of them live in colonies but it also has these drawbacks. And that's a, a really important thing to think about in a world where we have dramatic and unpredictable events. That's it for now See you soon.