Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
PLoS ONE
Volume
10
Issue
6
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Publication Date
6-9-2015
First Page
e0129342
Abstract
Seabird population changes are good indicators of long-term and large-scale change in marine ecosystems, and important because of their many impacts on marine ecosystems. We assessed the population trend of the world’s monitored seabirds (1950–2010) by compiling a global database of seabird population size records and applying multivariate autoregressive state-space (MARSS) modeling to estimate the overall population trend of the portion of the population with sufficient data (i.e., at least five records). This monitored population represented approximately 19% of the global seabird population. We found the monitored portion of the global seabird population to have declined overall by 69.7% between 1950 and 2010. This declining trend may reflect the global seabird population trend, given the large and apparently representative sample. Furthermore, the largest declines were observed in families containing wide-ranging pelagic species, suggesting that pan-global populations may be more at risk than shorter-ranging coastal populations.
Recommended Citation
Paleczny, M., Hammill, E., Karpouzi, V., and Pauly, D. 2015. Population trend of the world’s monitored seabirds, 1950 – 2010. Plos One 10 (6), e0129342.
