**Abstract:**

The marine environment is changing rapidly due to climate change and increasing anthropogenic activities. Understanding how the usage of spatial habitat by seabirds and their prey species may change with both of these pressures is essential for the predictions of population trends and current decision making on sustainable spatial management. Where both predator and prey species are highly mobile, it is important to predict how well their preferred habitats continue to overlap in future scenarios. The diversity of individually preferred habitat variables and drivers of those habitats may all be changing quite differently under the different pressures of climate change and anthropogenic activities. To predict future seabird-prey spatial habitat overlap we will present two synergistic approaches. The first is a spatial statistical Bayesian hierarchical approach called Joint Modelling with INLA (integrated Nested Laplace Approximation). Joint Modelling, as compared to typical single-species spatial distribution modelling, allows both predator and prey as a response variable, creating an output called a 'common spatial trend' that allows quantification of overlap in future predator-prey distributions using a 'business as usual' climate model for 2050. The degree of change within common spatial trends is presented between contrasting seabirds: common guillemot, black-legged kittiwake, northern gannet and two prey species: herring, sandeels. The second is a time series approach using a Bayesian Network Ecosystem Model with a range of species across all trophic levels from 1990-2014. Within both approaches, we have used the same six important bio/physical variables (2 types of primary production, stratification, temperature, vertical and horizontal speed). The outcomes presented include the startlingly amount of change in common spatial trend predicted in just 30 years and the degree to which bottom-up forces are predicted as the drivers for population change.

**Authors:**

Beth Scott¹, Neda Trifonova¹, Dinara Sadydova², Alexander Sadykov³, Michela De Dominicis⁴, Sarah Walkin⁴, Judith Wolf⁴

¹University of Aberdeen, ²University of Queen's Belfast, ³University of Queen's Belfast, ⁴National Oceanographic Centre

Spatial and temporal Bayesian approaches to predict future seabird-prey overlap and population change

**Session Replay:** [Click here](https://zoom.us/rec/share/QFYKhd7XCnRhXjmYbLV8QinYm6XGGN_d9SDlxohblbTbkmidI_CFjmTbx_DoXgB8.6p1rRvdARQ4QFBIQ?startTime=1633615540000)<br><br>

<i>**Session Chair: **Agnes Olin</i><br><br> 
**Session Description:**<br>Changes in ocean conditions alter food-web dynamics, with impacts on lower trophic levels travelling up the food chain to affect top predators. Recent advancements in data collection methods and increased coordination between seabird biologists and oceanographers have improved our understanding of prey-mediated effects of environmental change on seabirds. It is time to pool our understanding of the mechanisms and patterns of environmentally driven changes in prey quantity, quality and phenology and how seabirds respond to these changes across food webs in disparate ocean basins. This proposed symposium will provide an opportunity to examine climate-associated food-web shifts from both the perspective of the prey, looking in detail at how prey responds to environmental change, and from the perspective of the seabirds themselves, using long-term data on foraging behaviour, diet, and chick-provisioning strategies to infer shifts at lower trophic levels. By bringing together the global community of researchers working on climate-driven changes in prey-seabird interactions, this symposium aims to identify global patterns in marine food web dynamics, to understand how and when changes in prey filter up to the level of seabirds, and to provide a starting point for discussing how to move towards a predictive framework for modelling seabird responses to climate change.<br>

Symposium 8 - Prey-mediated effects of environmental change on seabirds II

symposium

Welcome Seabirders!  

Welcome to Virtual World Seabird Conference 3 - vWSC3! Whether you are in your office or lab, at home, in a coffee shop or bar poaching some wifi, or at a remote field site or research vessel – we are very excited to welcome you to the third ever World Seabird Conference. 

We would like to thank ALL of you for being so patient as WSC3 was scheduled, postponed, rescheduled, revised to virtual, and scheduled again. Throughout all those iterations there was one message that remained perfectly clear – seabirders were eager to meet and share their science. If we could not meet in person then virtual it would have to be, but a 3rd WSC was something everyone wanted. That support and commitment helped the WSU Board of Directors and Member Societies sort through all of the challenges they faced to plan and hold this conference. 

The list of those that need to be thanked is long and, while we plan on recognizing many during the live closing plenary, it is important to do so here in writing as well. 

The Australasian Seabird Group was our Local Host for our plan to meet in Hobart, Tasmania. They invested substantial time and effort to find venues and plan events that we unfortunately were not able to visit. Nonetheless we appreciate their work on behalf of WSC3 and encourage all of you to thank them when you see their members in Gathertown or elsewhere during our virtual meeting. Their willingness to host created the initial excitement for WSC3 and without that our vWSC would not have been possible.

We also wish to thank the Science Program Committee, the Virtual Committee, and the Early Career Scientist Committee for their hard work planning the logistics, events, and schedule for vWSC3. These committees also had to deal with changing parameters and short timelines that made what is always a challenging task even more challenging. The Travel Awards Committee also invested time and effort in developing procedures for awarding travel funds that ultimately would not be implemented. 

Our ability to shift from an in-person to a virtual meeting, and to do so in a way that would be financially feasible, was due to the effective efforts of The International Fundraising Committee and to our financial sponsors. The IFC raised funds to support WSC3 and then, through the good relationships they built with sponsors, ensured we could re-envision how those funds could be used to support a virtual conference that would be affordable and high-quality.

We all owe the WSU Board of Directors and the Representatives of the Member Societies a great deal of thanks. They are the ones who manage the WSU and, for the past 18 months, have had to have a series of challenging meetings and conversations, have had to make a series of difficult choices, have had to do all of that while considering the short- and long-term health of WSU and the World Seabird Conferences, and did this while also managing their own challenges at their day jobs. We are grateful for their diligence, patience, foresight, and throughout all of the meetings, their collegiality. Also – a 6-year term is quite a commitment!

There would not be a WSC3 without a successful WSC1 and WSC2. Thanks go to the Pacific Seabird Group for their support of WSC1 in Victoria, Canada, and to the African Seabird Group for their support of WSC2 in Cape Town, South Africa. In each of these endeavors and for our current conference we were fortunate to work with a dependable and trustworthy partner in Podium Conferences. Michelle Smith and Marischal de Armond have become valued members of our team and have not only helped us plan conferences but have assisted and advised the WSU Chairs and Board on issues above and beyond conference planning. 

As we embark on our vWSC3 week we extend to all of you our thanks for showing up, for being patient, and most importantly for the work you do with seabirds. We are all part of a unique, global community that shares an interest, a fascination, and a passion for birds that make a living in our world’s oceans. We have advanced the science, conservation, and management of seabirds as well the ecosystems they inhabit. We are consistently impressed and motivated by the work you do. 

The WSU formed in 2010 because we saw the need for a global organization to address challenges at a global level. Over the past 11 years WSU has grown, adapted, and evolved to become the community that this week is making vWSC3 a reality. Enjoy the week, appreciate and support the friends and colleagues you have made in the community, and if you see us in a virtual hallway please stop and say hello! 

Thank you for the opportunity to serve all of you and the WSU over the past few years,

Nicholas Carlile, Interim Chair, WSU<br>
Patrick Jodice, 2nd Chair of the WSU<br><br>

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3rd World Seabird Conference

Join us for four days of science, networking and virtual engagement with delegates from around the world!

Beth Scott

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Spatial and temporal Bayesian approaches to predict future seabird-prey overlap and population change

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