Freak storms stopped tens of thousands of birds breeding in Antarctica

Extreme storms in Antarctica prevented tens of hundreds of seabirds reproducing final yr, and if local weather change causes comparable occasions sooner or later, it may speed up a decline in numbers.

Sébastien Descamps on the Norwegian Polar Institute and his colleagues monitor three seabird species in Queen Maud Land, which makes up one-fifth of Antarctica.

The birds – the Antarctic petrel, the snow petrel and the south polar skua – breed every year within the Antarctic summer time, laying eggs on the finish of November and the beginning of December. The petrels lay a single egg, however the skuas have a tendency to put two, with hatchlings able to fly between February and March.

But notably violent storms between December 2021 and January 2022 meant the three species principally didn’t breed on this a part of Antarctica that summer time. “Colonies more than 500 kilometres apart were impacted,” says Descamps. “The storms simply prevented any reproduction at all – with the exception of a few snow petrels that were likely breeding in cavities sheltered from the storms.”

Tens of hundreds of nests are often discovered on this nook of the continent, says Descamps, whose staff estimates seabird populations by counting the variety of nests in 200 small plots and extrapolating the outcomes to the broader space.

The snowstorms most likely put the birds off, as a result of sturdy winds make it more durable to maintain the physique heat and to incubate eggs, says Descamps.

“At some point, long-lived species like seabirds prefer to abandon their egg and increase their chance of survival by going back to sea, where they can feed and gain energy,” he says.

“These long-lived seabirds have many chances to breed successfully throughout their lifespan and it’s possible that the long-term impacts of this particular event, though startling to witness, may be muted,” says Heather Lynch at Stony Brook University in New York. “It will take many years, and further monitoring, to know for sure,” she says.

Descamps echoes this, however says the Antarctic petrel has been declining in Queen Maud Land for 20 years and if storms like this turn out to be extra frequent or extreme, it may speed up the inhabitants’s discount. “Unfortunately, this is what climate models predict,” he says.

Thankfully, the variety of birds breeding in these colonies seems to have returned to regular throughout the present Antarctic summer time, he says.