Summary
- The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MFSD) has been developed with the
aim of achieving Good Environmental Status (GES) in Europe's seas by 2020. To do
this, all EU states must submit a list of environmental targets to the European
Commission and put in place a supporting monitoring programme that will assess
progress towards achieving these targets.
- Seabirds have long been proposed as valuable indicators of the health of the
marine environment. Seabird breeding success has been shown to be closely linked
to food quality and availability. Consequently, tracking breeding failure rates for a
variety of species over a broad spatial scale would provide a valuable tool with
which to monitor the effect of anthropogenic activities on the wider marine
environment.
- Breeding success data were obtained from the Seabird Monitoring Programme
for 17 seabird species, which were then ranked according to their sensitivity to
changes in food supply.
- Breeding failure rates for each of these species were then modelled over the
period 1986-2010 to account for annual variability in sampling regime.
- Modelled failure rates were then assessed against a target of the proportion of
colonies failing not exceeding a maximum threshold in more than three out of the
preceding six years.
- Five different maximum thresholds were considered - 5% of colonies, 15% of
colonies, the mean failure rate of the preceding 10 years, the mean failure rate of the
preceding 15 years and the mean failure rate of the preceding 20 years.
- The most realistic maximum threshold was felt to be the mean failure rate of
the preceding 15 years, or 5% of colonies, whichever value was higher. By setting
this threshold it was possible to account for long-term environmental changes
which may affect breeding success, whilst also ensuring that failure to meet
targets would not be driven by breeding failure at a single colony in a species with
relatively few colonies.
- Based on an initial indicator assessment and consideration of species
sensitivities to changes in food supply, Arctic tern, common tern, sandwich tern,
little tern and kittiwake were selected as indicators for the Greater North Sea
sub-region and common tern, Arctic tern, kittiwake, lesser black-backed gull and
herring gull were selected as indicators for the Celtic Seas sub-region.
- At present in the Greater North Sea sub-region, common tern, Arctic tern,
Sandwich tern and little tern are assessed as failing to meet the above target,
while kittiwake meets the target. In the Celtic Seas sub-region, lesser black-backed
gull and herring gull are assessed as failing to meet the above target; both tern
species and kittiwake met the target.
Keywords:
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7045
Notes
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- Cook ASCP, Robinson RA & Ross-Smith VH (2014) "Development of MSFD
Indicators, Baselines and Target for Seabird Breeding Failure Occurrence
in the UK (2012)" JNCC Report 539, ISSN 0963 8901
[notes]
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/page-7045
Cook et al (2014b)
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