Advection, Pelagic Food Webs And The Biogeography Of Seabirds In Beringia

In the first overview of seabird ecology for the region, Springer et al. (1987) showed that two distinct environmental settings in the northern Bering-Chukchi ecosystem lead to characteristic pathways of energy flow through pelagic food webs to avian consumers.The diversity and abundance of nesting seabirds are much higher in the western region dominated by oceanic water, than in the eastern region dominated by coastal water.For example, some of the largest colonies in the world of primarily planktivorous Least Auklets Aethia pusilla, Crested Auklets A. cristatella, and Parakeet Auklets A. psittacula and primarily piscivorous Common Murres Uria aalge and Thick-billed Murres Uria lomvia are found on St. Lawrence Island and the Diomede islands.In contrast, only Parakeet Auklets nest in the coastal zone of the northeastern Bering Sea, and in small numbers, there are very few Thick-billed murres, and abundances of other species also are low (Sowls et al 1978).In this paper, we examine how oceanography and biology influence the pelagic distribution and ecology of seabirds throughout Beringia.We examine seabird diversity and abundance at sea using data collected on seabirds during the 1970s and 1980s by the U.S.