In this project, we propose the use of remote time-lapse photography as a tool to collect population estimates and to correct for bias in large-scale colony surveys of seabird numbers due to short-term variation in colony attendance. The technology provides a low-cost opportunity to gain a detailed insight into the daily, seasonal and annual trends of colonial seabirds.
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With the method being proposed here, an initial visit to setup and install the camera and then a single annual visit thereafter are adequate for collection of entire seasons worth of data, and using a camera gives freedom for researchers to collect other data while visiting a study site.
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Many seabird species breed in remote places where direct observation often requires expensive travel and use of man-hours, especially if you want to gain quality long-term monitoring data that extend over full seasons. This implies that rather detailed studies are needed to arrive at accurate and comparable breeding population estimates. However, colony attendance can vary over the course of a day, a season or between years according to local factors, such as weather, foraging conditions and the proportion of non-breeding birds attending the colony ( Birkhead 1978 Harris et al. A very basic but essential parameter of colonial seabird monitoring is breeding population development, often measured as the number of birds attending the breeding colony. Seabirds breed in large colonies and have been distinguished as indicators of climate change and the health of marine systems ( Piatt et al. The method has not been expanded on since new technology has been developed making the method feasible for long periods of time, for purposes such as population monitoring ( Weller and Derksen 1972 Piatt et al. 2008), but few have applied the technology in groups of gregarious birds for any purpose ( Cowardin and Ashe 1965 Weller and Derksen 1972 Montalbano et al. Some studies have used video or time-lapse photography for analyzing habitat use over daily and seasonal periods ( Piatt et al. The use of the technology has not been fully exploited to monitor diurnal, seasonal or long-term population trends. Most studies have focused on specific behaviors, e.g., nest predation and chick provisioning ( Goetz 1981 King et al. Time-lapse photography has been in use for some time, and was proposed for observing avian behavior since the technology became commercially available ( Cowardin and Ashe 1965 Temple 1972 Weller and Derksen 1972 Tennyson et al. Researcher effort and costs associated with data collection for population monitoring of seabird colonies can be greatly reduced and population estimates can be drastically improved by the use of remote time-lapse photography. The proposed method can be applied to colonial breeding seabirds and/or other similar systems for population monitoring. A 5-hr interval introduced stochastic effects that did not show the correct diurnal trend. Compared to the 1-hr photo-capture interval, intervals of 2 and 4 hr accurately depicted the diurnal trend, while a 3-hr interval showed the trend but with a misrepresentation of the first attendance peak.
The study showed that careful choice of photo-capture interval is important to reduce the possibility of misrepresenting the diurnal trend of the study species. By using a photo-capture interval of one picture per hour during one murre breeding season, the study showed a seasonal trend in attendance peaking in the mid chick-rearing period, a diurnal trend with a small peak at ca.
Time-lapse photography was used to take pictures once per hour of a predetermined study plot for the duration of the breeding season, and the pictures were then analyzed using GIS software. To illustrate the applicability of this method, data were collected at a Thick-billed Murre ( Uria lomvia) colony on Kippaku, Greenland. The use of remote time-lapse photography to collect population parameters at seabird colonies is a novel way to reduce researcher effort while collecting valuable data. Monitoring at logistically-challenging seabird colonies takes extensive resources and expensive man-hours to complete. Seabirds are important bio-indicators for marine ecosystem conservation.