A small colony of black guillemots living on a
gravel spit off Point Barrow is providing a unique insight into the changing
Arctic environment.
The Cooper Island birds feed their young on cod
that hug the underside and edges of the polar pack ice.
But their access to this prey source is being
limited by the big retreat in seasonal ice cover now under way.
How the guillemots respond will turn a lens on
the wider changes taking place in Arctic ecosystems, biologists say.
"Things could go either way for these
birds," explains George Divoky, who has studied the guillemots since 1975.
"It's just not known at this stage whether
they will be able to cope with the big change by adapting to new food sources,
or if they will have lower and lower breeding success until the colony
eventually disappears," he told BBC News.
Dr Divoky was speaking here at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall
Meeting, the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
The bird biologist spends three months of the
year on Cooper Island, which is about 40km east of the Alaskan town of Barrow.
Continued:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20498368
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