Online Training Resource for Climate Adaptation: Introduction
Vulnerability and Climate Change: The Plight of Iceland's Puffins
1. Coastal
and
Marine
Management
Master’s
Programme
PUFFINS AS INDICATORS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
Puffins are adapted to living in cold waters between 32º to 68º Fahrenheit (0º to 20º Celsius) and prey on cold water
species; herring, capelin and sand-eels. Besides a long term prospect of breeding colonies being inundated due to sea level
rise, climate change may also be playing a role in the current population decline.
Climate directly affects metabolic and reproductive processes and indirectly affects resource availability. In the Arctic
phytoplankton blooms are connected to ice retreat. Blooms occur early in cold waters and early melts have advanced spring
phenology. Minor changes in climate invoke non-linear responses that unbalance established trophic patterns leading to food
chain components shifting their phenology at different times and rates (Durant et al.,2007). Present Icelandic Puffin
mortality maybe connected to a climate driven mismatch between prey availability and predator productivity.
HUMAN IMPACTS
Over fishing and excessive hunting have threatened Puffin
populations in the past. In the early 1900’s a 30 year hunting ban
was imposed in the Westman Islands. Once stocks had recovered,
Islanders adopted the ‘fleyg’ sky fishing technique from the Faroe
Islands, targeting non-breeding birds in the air rather than those at
their nests. A fixed hunting season, July to August, was also set.
ICON OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC
e
REFERENCES
Durant, J., Hjermann, D., Ottersen, G., Stenseth, N., (2007): Climate and the match or mismatch between predator requirements and resource availability. Climate Research. 33: 271-283
Hansen, E., (2009): Iceland Nature Institute: Puffin Stock in Danger. Iceland Review Online 16.06.2009/ 16:00
Klein, R., (2002): CoastalVunerability, Resilence and Adaptation to Climate Change; an Interdisciplinary Perspective. Cumulative Dissertation.
Osterblom, H., Olsson, O., Blenckner,T., Furness, R., (2008): Junk-food in marine systems. Oikos, 117: 967-977
VULNERABILITY
&
CLIMATE
CHANGE:
THE
PLIGHT
OF
ICELAND’S
PUFFINS.
• Deborah Davies • deborah09@uwestfjords.is • HáskólaseturVestfjarða • May 2010 •
In 2005, population declines affecting the British and Faroe Isles reached Icelandic shores.
Ecologists reported dead hatchlings and found pre-breeding generations to be absent in
many colonies. In four years the Westman Isles home to 700,000 breading couples - the
largest colony in the world - saw a population decrease of 24 percent (Hansen, 2009). In a
complex web of interactions could Puffins be a bio-indicator of the health of Iceland s seas?
THE FUTURE
Vulnerability is more than the sensitivity of natural and human systems to the potential impacts of climate change, it is also
the degree to which these systems can respond to these impacts (Klein, 2002). In the Westman Isles, Puffins are part of the
natural and cultural landscape and a significant tourist draw. The community supports research into intrinsic and extrinsic
factors that affect Puffins and inhibit or enhance their adaptation. However the possible shift to ‘junk-food’ coupled with
large scale changes in climatological and oceanographic forcing, as well as predation, (over)fishing and competition could
mean that, unlike in the past, a ban on hunting in the Westman Islands, may simply not be enough this time.
WINTER ODYSSEY
Puffins spend most of their lives on the water coming
ashore only to bread. Most mortalities occur during
the winter due to depressed food stocks, adverse
weather conditions and shorter foraging days. It is also
the time when puffins undergo their main moult, lose
wing feathers and become flightless.
In 2008, geo-locator tags fitted to birds on the Isle of
May, Scotland, showed that Puffins are heading into
the cooler Atlantic, rather than a warming North Sea,
where phytoplankton blooms are low. If this is true
for Icelandic Puffins, greater distances and differing
habitats will add to their vulnerability, risk of exhaus-
tion and delayed return for the breeding season.
JUNK FOOD
A shift in food supply may also have induced a dietary
switch to prey of low energy. This ‘Junk Food’ may
not be sufficient to sustain the Puffins metabolism
and energy expensive, foraging behaviour.
(Osterblom et al., 2008)
There are around 12 million Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula
Arctica) 6 million of which bread along the Icelandic coast.
Population Collapse
(Durant et al., 2007))
Thursday, 30 May 2013