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Marine Ecology Progress Series

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Wind and weather effects on seabird foraging, movement and energetics

Photo: Richard Phillips

Wind and weather effects on seabird foraging, movement and energetics
Weather, and particularly wind, shapes the movement, energetics, foraging behaviour and life history of seabirds. Wind impacts both individual decisions and population processes in seabirds through direct effects on flight costs (energetics) across a range of spatiotemporal scales, from individual wing beats to ocean-basin-scale migration strategies. Global wind and weather patterns are strongly impacted by climate change, but their effects on seabird populations are not well understood. Understanding the links between wind and other weather variables (e.g. temperature, precipitation), and seabird morphology, movement, energetics and life-history characteristics is critical to predicting how seabird populations will respond to future environmental changes. Advances in tagging technology in recent years have allowed animal location, environmental factors and physiological parameters to be measured simultaneously, providing a means of assessing these links directly.


This Theme Section welcomes studies that bring together recent developments in biologging, atmospheric modelling, and statistical or theoretical ecology, to better understand the effects of wind and other aspects of the weather on seabirds.


If you wish to contribute your work to this Theme Section, please select the “WIND” Section when you submit your manuscript online and mention in your cover letter that you are interested to have your work included in this Theme Section.


For questions, contact Christine Paetzold (Managing Editor) .


Organizers: Richard Phillips, Lesley H. Thorne, Thomas A. Clay


Editors: Thomas A. Clay, Richard Phillips, Lesley H. Thorne, Rory P. Wilson


Status: Submissions are closed.


Important notice: Submissions to this Theme Section after 1 November 2022 are not affected by the changes in MEPS Open Access pricing. Pre-November prices will apply along with a 20% discount.


Individual Theme Section articles are published 'Advance View' as soon as they are ready. Once the Theme Section is completed, they will be fully published in a regular volume of MEPS and given a volume number and page range. Theme Section literature cites within the articles will also be updated at that time.



Schoombie S, Wilson RP, Ryan PG
Wind driven effects on the fine-scale flight behaviour of dynamic soaring wandering albatrosses
MEPS WIND: AV1 | Full text in pdf format


Schoombie J, Schoombie S, Connan M, Jones CW, Risi M, Craig KJ, Smith L, Ryan PG, Shepard ELC
Impact of wind on crash-landing mortality in grey-headed albatrosses Thalassarche chrysostoma breeding on Marion Island
MEPS WIND: AV2 | Full text in pdf format


Keys DZ, Pistorius PA, Tremblay Y, Thiebault A
Both wind and flying with conspecifics influence the flight dynamics of a seabird
MEPS WIND: AV3 | Full text in pdf format


van Erp J, Sage E, Bouten W, van Loon E, Camphuysen KCJ, Shamoun-Baranes J
Thermal soaring over the North Sea and implications for wind farm interactions
MEPS WIND: AV4 | Full text in pdf format