New findings bared on seabirds extinction

The feathers of seabirds could hold the key to protecting endangered species from extinction, Australian researchers have found.

IN A WORLD-fiRST STUDY PUBLISHED on Thursday, a team from the University of South Australia (UniSA) AND THE COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIfiC and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) found that feathers from seabirds can reveal clues of their long-distance foraging.

They found that feathers from LARGE SEABIRDS, CLASSIfiED AS THOSE weighing more than 400 grams, including the threatened wandering albatross, indicate they feed from a wide range of different ocean basins while smaller birds foraged more locally.

The researchers are optimistic THAT FEATHER PROfiLES COULD BE USED to decipher the movements of open ocean seabirds such as the wandering albatross, which has the largest wingspan of any bird species and is one of the most far-ranging.

Lauren Roman, the CSIRO research leader on the project, said a better understanding of factors that affect the distribution of seabirds would help protect them.

“Highly mobile marine animals may be traveling long distances to meet their mineral needs, in addition to their energy needs,” she said in a media release.

“But what this also tells us is that we must continue to protect biodiverse marine areas to ensure micronutrient availability for threatened bird species.”

Roman said one of the biggest threats to biodiverse marine areas is climate change, as it has the potential to affect nutrient cycles and distribution across the Southern Ocean.

“While more research needs to be done, this work expands our ecological knowledge about oceanic SPECIES AND THE SIGNIfiCANCE OF MIcronutrient availability for the survival of seabirds like the Wandering Albatross,” she said.