This is the third annual report of the SEAPOP programme, which was initiated in 2005. In 2007, the work continued at full scale in the Lofoten-Barents Sea area, and similar studies were initiated in the southern part of the Norwegian Sea. The report is divided into three sections. The first is an executive summary, the second presents five selected highlights from the studies in 2007, whereas the ...

This is the first annual report from SEAPOP, a long-term seabird programme aiming to provide and maintain base-line knowledge needed for an improved management of marine areas. For several reasons, the activities in the initial year were restricted to the Lofoten and Barents Sea area, but the programme is designed for implementation on the full national scale within a few years. The report ...

Since 1980, there has been large variation and a recent decline in the mass and body condition of Common Guillemot Uria aalge chicks departing from the nest site in NE Norway. This may be related to deterioration in the feeding conditions off the colony and is alarming considering the critically endangered status of the species in Norway. To measure body condition, earlier studies have caught, weighed ...

Hekkebestandene av lomvi (Uria aalge) langs norskekysten har hatt en sterk nedgang i løpet av de siste 45 årene. Den norske fastlandsbestanden utgjør i dag ikke mer enn ca 15 000 par, mens den til sammenligning ble beregnet til 120-160 000 par i begynnelsen av 1960-årene. Den største bestanden i norske områder finnes i dag på Bjørnøya hvor det hekker ca 100 000 par, men også her er bestanden ...

Denne synteserapporten beskriver hvordan endringene og fluktuasjonene i økosystemene i norske havområder påvirker næringsforholdene for sjøfugl. Disse endringene har konsekvenser for sjøfuglsamfunnene langs kysten, og tilstanden for mange bestander har blitt betegnet som kritisk. Selv om mange bestander går tilbake, er bildet langt fra entydig, og vi finner ingen enkle sammenhenger mellom tilstanden ...

SEAPOP (Seabird population management and petroleum operations) er et nasjonalt, kunnskapsoppbyggende program om sjøfugl tilrettelagt for å gi styrket beslutningsstøtte for marine områder. Konseptet ble først utviklet for oljeindustrien i et samarbeid mellom Norsk institutt for naturforskning (NINA) og Den norske stats oljeselskap as (Statoil), men er senere videreutviklet i samarbeid med Norsk ...

The epidemiology of avian influenza viruses (AIVs) in gulls is only partially known. The role of the world's most numerous gull species, the black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), as a potential AIV reservoir species has been unclear. The prevalence of AIV and humoral response against AIV were therefore studied in a colony of apparently healthy black-legged kittiwakes breeding in a nesting cliff ...

Predicting the impact of global climate change on the biosphere has become one of the most important efforts in ecology. Ecosystems worldwide are changing rapidly as a consequence of global warming, yet our understanding of the consequences of these changes on populations is limited. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) has been used as a proxy for “climate” in several ecological studies, but this ...

Due to major shifts in the marine ecosystem, many seabirds in the NE Atlantic have experienced short- and long-term breeding failures and population changes. One such seabird is the Atlantic puffin Fratercula arctica, the populations of which have declined in Norway at an annual rate of 2% over a ~30 yr period. Parallel to this decline, we found a significant decline in egg volume at 2 widely ...

Birds allocate substantial resources to their eggs during the laying period, resources also needed for other concurrent costly processes such as mate acquisition, nest building and site defence. Egg and clutch sizes may thus vary in response to food availability prior to egg laying. We investigated the variation in egg and clutch size of black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla in a North Norwegian ...