The highly productive waters around Antarctica (also known as the Southern Ocean) are particularly rich in seabird diversity, but this region and the seabirds that inhabit it are also highly threatened by a myriad of pressures. This includes climate change, industrial fishing, pollution, disease, and expanding tourism operations.
In order to protect seabirds, the location of areas in the marine environment that specific seabird populations depend on for survival (which we call “high-use areas”) must be identified and subsequently incorporated into conservation and fisheries management. However, collecting data on highly mobile species in these remote locations is very challenging. This has limited the amount of information available to inform important management decisions. Satellite tracking of tagged animals is therefore an extremely valuable tool for understanding the at-sea distributions of seabirds in this region. To increase access to these important data, which are costly in time and resources to acquire, the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) compiled and made publicly available the Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD).
Our study, published in the journal Conservation Biology, assessed satellite telemetry tracks from 10 seabird (and 4 pinniped) species (Figure 1) from RAATD totaling 1640 animals, 1,617,598 observed locations, and 57 data groups (identified by species, breeding population, and seasonal stage). We located areas of particular conservation importance to our study populations by identifying high-use areas and assessing these sites against relevant Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) criteria – a set of standardized quantitative thresholds – that sets guidelines for identifying areas important for the global persistence of biodiversity.
Figure 1. The nine species of seabirds for which our analysis identified Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): Antarctic petrels (Thalassoica antarctica), grey-headed albatrosses (Thalassarche chrysostoma), sooty albatrosses (Phoebetria fusca), white-chinned petrels (Procellaria aequinoctialis), Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae), emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), macaroni penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus), and royal penguins (Eudyptes schlegeli).
This work, which also involved conducting an extensive literature review on the life-history and population status of our study populations and organizing an expert workshop to review our methods, identified 51 important at-sea high-use areas, 30 of which qualified as KBAs. Of these, 28 high-use areas and 17 KBAs were identified across nine seabird species (Figure 2). These sites represent important foraging or migration pathways vital for survival and breeding success of these populations. Much of the information that informs the extensive conservation planning efforts in the Southern Ocean is derived from multi-species models. Our methods complement and build on this ongoing work by filling data gaps on the location of important at-sea habitat for a variety of distinct seabird populations. Our results bolster evidence for areas of known importance across many species, as well as highlighting several areas not previously considered as conservation priorities.
Figure 2. Potential key biodiversity areas (KBAs) per species, identified in the recent study published in Conservation Biology. These sites passed thresholds determined by the KBA Global Standard, which sets out guidelines for determining sites important for the persistence of global biodiversity. Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) Marine Protected Area (MPA) Planning Domains and national exclusive economic zones (EEZs) are also included.
Next steps for this work include proposing these sites to the KBA Standards and Appeals Committee, which “ensures KBA identification and delineation is consistent with the KBA Standard”, and incorporating their feedback to finalize KBA site boundaries to make them publicly available in the World Database of KBAs. Identifying key areas for biodiversity conservation is an important part of protecting species like seabirds in the future. We will share the information about these proposed sites with Southern Ocean conservation bodies, including the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). We envision that these sites could be incorporated into future protected area plans for the waters around Antarctica.