Sympatrically breeding congeneric seabirds (Stercorarius spp.) from Arctic Canada migrate to four oceans

Abstract

Polar systems of avian migration remain unpredictable. For seabirds nesting in the Nearctic, it is often difficult to predict which of the world's oceans birds will migrate to after breeding. Here, we report on three related seabird species that migrated across four oceans following sympatric breeding at a central Canadian high Arctic nesting location. Using telemetry, we tracked pomarine jaeger (Stercorarius pomarinus, n = 1) across the Arctic Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean; parasitic jaeger (S. parasiticus, n = 4) to the western Atlantic Ocean, and long-tailed jaeger (S. longicaudus, n = 2) to the eastern Atlantic Ocean and western Indian Ocean. We also report on extensive nomadic movements over ocean during the postbreeding period (19,002 km) and over land and ocean during the prebreeding period (5578 km) by pomarine jaeger, an irruptive species whose full migrations and nomadic behavior have been a mystery. While the small sample sizes in our study limit the ability to make generalizable inferences, our results provide a key input to the knowledge of jaeger migrations. Understanding the routes and migratory divides of birds nesting in the Arctic region has implications for understanding both the glacial refugia of the past and the Anthropocene-driven changes in the future.

Keywords: Arctic; animal tracking; migration; nomadism; seabirds.