The effect of climate on adult survival in five species of North Atlantic seabirds

Abstract

In long-lived species, adult survival is an important life-history trait. Better knowledge of the effects of non-catastrophic climate variation on the adult survival of longlived seabirds is therefore needed. However, documentation of such effects is still rare. 2. Using capture-mark-resighting data, we modelled the annual survival rates of five species of seabirds, the common guillemot ( Uria aalge ), Brnnich's guillemot ( Uria lomvia ), razorbill ( Alca torda ), Atlantic puffin ( Fratercula arctica ) and black-legged kittiwake ( Rissa tridactyla ). The data spanned 14 years of observation at a colony on Hornya, off Northern Norway in the western Barents Sea.