ABSTRACT
Seabirds have been used as sensible sentinels and indicators of changes in marine productivity patterns worldwide. However, not all seabird species are suitable indicators of different oceanographic changes. It is always important to establish to which temporal and spatial scales of oceanographic processes a certain seabird species is responding in, for instance, shifts in foraging distribution. Indeed, several seabird ecology parameters have been used to evaluate marine environments, such as shifts in distribution, reproduction, phenology or demography. For instance, changes in population numbers could be indicative of large spatio-temporal scale shifts in the marine environments, like shifts in the location and intensity of pelagic frontal systems. While shifts in foraging distribution, which can alter within a year, could be determined by small to moderate spatio-temporal changes in oceanographic processes, such as the increase in SST in the colony surroundings. Nevertheless, intrinsic characteristics of seabird populations such as sex or age can act as confounding effects when assessing seabirds’ suitability as indicators of oceanographic changes. To improve our understanding of pelagic seabirds as indicators of shifts in oceanographic processes, further mechanistic studies especially on low latitude marine realms are needed.
