Long-term effects of GPS tagging on the time Lesser Black-backed Gulls spend at sea

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4762669/v1

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Long-term effects of GPS tagging on the time Lesser Black-backed Gulls spend at sea

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4762669/v1

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Background: The use of tracking devices in ecological studies provides valuable insights into the movements and behaviour of wildlife, yet concerns persist regarding effects of tags on individuals. In birds, long-term attachments can lead to feather abrasion, feather loss, or lack of regrowth. Especially for seabirds, which rely on the insulation from their feathers to withstand low water temperatures, this may create problems with thermoregulation. In a multi-year tracking programme of Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus fuscus) in multiple breeding colonies, we noted that tagged individuals recaptured in later years had a small bare patch under the GPS tag, possibly affecting thermoregulation while foraging at sea.

Results: We explored behavioural consequences of GPS tags fitted with permanent harnesses by measuring the time spent at sea in the first breeding season and compared that with subsequent breeding seasons. Habitat use of Lesser Black-backed Gulls vary between individuals and colonies, with some individuals foraging mainly at sea while others remain mainly on land. There was no relationship between the time spent at sea in the year of tag deployment and return rate the following year. Though, almost all individuals reduced the time they spent at sea after the year of deployment. Averaged over the colonies, the proportion of time spent at sea within individuals halved from 0.14 in the year of tag deployment to 0.07 in the next season. Also within years, newly tagged gulls spent on average more time at sea at the population level than gulls tagged in earlier years, suggesting that a potential shift in habitat use in the breeding population did not explain changes in time spent at sea that we observed at the individual level.

Conclusions: Our study indicates that long-term attachment of tracking devices may affect habitat choice by Lesser Black-backed Gulls and other seabirds in the breeding season, with potential consequences for behavioural studies and ethical considerations of instrumenting animals. Although we expect that the observed shift away from at-sea foraging areas was influenced by problems with thermoregulation, we discuss other potential causes for the observed habitat shift.

GPS-tag

tagging

tracking

animal movement

GPS-device

GPS-tracker

biologging

foraging behaviour

return rate

seabird

Larus

skin lesions

feathers

Biologging or biotelemetry, such as GPS tracking, is a common, modern method to study movement ecology in birds and other animals (i.e. 1, 2). Tracking studies have enormously improved our understanding of animal distribution and behaviour at locations and times where human observations are difficult or impossible. Tracking technology has provided thereby valuable insight into migration strategies, foraging ecology and energetics of the full annual cycle (i.e. 3, 4–9). However, to generalize behaviour assessed from animal tracking, it is important to critically examine whether the tracking device and its attachment affects the behaviour of the study species (10, 11). Using a meta-analysis including more than 450 studies, Body et al. (12) showed that in general, tagging birds had a negative effect on survival and reproduction, and was positively associated with foraging trip duration; however the impact varied per species, device, and attachment method. These negative effects of tracking devices on birds may be caused by their added mass (13), discomfort (14) or increased drag during flight or during dives (15, 16). Additionally, tracking devices fitted for longer-term deployment, for instance with a wing harness (17), may cause feather damage, feather loss, or abrasion of the skin underneath the device or harness (14). In Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) skin abrasions were found underneath the harness depending on the material used (18), in Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla) the skin underneath the tracking device was inflamed when recaptured (19), and Lesser Black-backed Gulls (Larus fuscus) which were recovered two years after tagging showed feather damage (17).

In our own studies with Lesser Black-backed Gulls, with multi-year GPS deployments using a wing harness (i.e. 20, 21, 22), we observed bare patches lacking down and contour feathers under the GPS tag in re-trapped individuals after at least one cycle of postnuptial moult (see photo’s in Additional File 1). A lack of contour feathers results in a permeable plumage and may compromise insulation, thereby affecting thermoregulatory costs of birds that frequently forage on or dive in (sea)water (23). An increase in thermoregulatory costs may lead to longer foraging trips (24) or mortality if this energy loss cannot be compensated for, but it could also lead to shifts away from aquatic habitats. In an experiment to test the effects of tracking devices fitted with a wing harness on captive Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), those with a device were less likely to be in the water than the control group (25), which was explained by a disruption of the waterproof layer by the device and harness. Obviously, such adaptive behaviour would only be feasible for species which have the option to choose between aquatic or terrestrial habitats.

Lesser Black-backed Gulls are among the most commonly tracked seabirds, and previous studies found no negative effects of GPS tags on offspring development within the year of tagging (26) or on return rates in the following year (17). Studies on longer-term effects of tracking devices on behaviour or habitat choice are lacking. Lesser Black-backed Gulls are omnivores and use a range foraging habitats, including marine, subtidal, and terrestrial habitats, such as agricultural fields and urban areas (6, 21, 27–30). Tracking studies revealed that there is a considerable variation in habitat use between individuals, in part influenced by breeding status and sex (27, 30, 31). In our studies GPS tags are attached using permanent harnesses, thereby affecting feather growth underneath the device. If insulation is disrupted, especially in cold water, gulls could shift their foraging behaviour from sea to land in years following deployment.

In this analysis, we utilized a long-term dataset of 110 GPS-tagged Lesser Black-backed Gulls breeding in three colonies to investigate whether the devices affected habitat choice. Given individual variability in habitat choice, we examined whether birds that spent a relatively high amount of time at sea during the year of tag deployment were less likely to return to the colony in subsequent years. If no relationship was found, we could rule out selective disappearance. As we could not compare the time spent at sea between tagged and untagged individual birds, we investigated whether the time spent at sea decreased over years within individuals. Since a within-individual reduction in time spent at sea could potentially result from gradual environmental changes affecting the entire population, we also compared newly tagged gulls with those tagged in previous years. We hypothesized that if GPS tags caused a shift from sea to land in years following deployment, newly tagged gulls would spent more time at sea than previously tagged ones. Because breeders and non-breeders differ in the time they spend at sea (27), we focused our study on breeding individuals. We expected that if there were an effect, the strongest reduction would occur in the first year after deployment, assuming a lack of regrowth of mantle feathers during post-nuptial moult in the first autumn after tagging.

This study took place in three breeding colonies of Lesser Black-backed Gulls in the Netherlands. Two of the studied colonies are situated in the Wadden Sea area on the barrier islands Texel (53°00′31N 4°43′06 E) and Schiermonnikoog (53°30′00N 6°15′34E), and one colony is situated on an artificial island in the harbour of IJmuiden (52°27′54 N 4°34′34E) (Fig. 1).

Lesser Black-backed Gulls were trapped with walk-in-cages halfway through their incubation stage (around the end of May). Thus all birds in the current study were active breeders at the time of deployment. Each bird was measured and weighed and sex was determined using biometrics (21). Along with a colour- and metal-ring, birds were equipped with a solar-powered UvA-BiTS 5C GPS device (32). We used a ‘wing harness’ made out of tubular Teflon ribbon treaded with a nylon string as this attachment method was considered most suitable (33). The wing harness was adjusted to the size of the bird. Over the study period the weight of the tags decreased from 18.5 g to 13.5 g, which was in all cases < 3% of the body mass (see SI Table 1 with bird, year, colony and tag characteristics in Additional File 2). The average handling time was 18 minutes, ranging from 10 to 40 minutes. The longest and ongoing tracking study started on Texel in 2008, the tracking study in IJmuiden started in 2019 and is ongoing, while the tracking study on Schiermonnikoog ran from 2017–2022. The GPS-tags used before 2010 were prototypes and had a shorter endurance, and we therefore started the analysis from 2010 onwards.

We used tracking data from the breeding period between 31 May and 20 June, to be able to compare the similar periods of newly tagged birds with birds tagged in previous years. This selection holds an equal number of weekends and weekdays, as during the weekend gulls were found to spend less time at sea due to a lower intensity of fisheries (31, 34). The GPS tags stored a position every 3 s to 60 min depending on the region, battery and specific research questions being addressed at the time of deployment. In general, measurements were taken every 10–15 min in the colony and every 5 min outside the colony during the breeding season. Data gaps occurred when batteries were drained. Data was downloaded from the tags when they were in reach of a ground station that was set up in the colony. For each bird we calculated the forward time interval and distance between GPS fixes. Intervals of more than one hour without GPS data were excluded from the dataset to minimise location bias. We classified each GPS fix as being at sea, on land, or in the colony. We used “Landelijk Grondgebruiksbestand Nederland versie 7” (35) to define if a GPS position was on land or at sea, and used a polygon made from the AHN4 DSM raster (collected in 2020–2022 with a 50 cm resolution, see ahn.nl for details) to increase the detail of the North Sea shoreline, so we could distinguish if gulls were resting at the beach (considered as on land) or were at sea near the shoreline. We defined if gulls were located within the colony using a colony specific shapefile.

We calculated the yearly proportion of time spent in the colony, at sea (Wadden Sea and North Sea combined) and on land for each gull per year by dividing the time spent in each of these habitats by total tracking time which may differ per individual and year. If there was less than 14 days of data within a year, for instance because the bird left the colony after breeding failure and never returned, died, or because the GPS tag stopped working, this bird-year combination was excluded. Gulls are intermittent breeders (21), and, since we do not have detailed data on the breeding status of all individuals, we used proportion of time spent in the colony (between 24 May and 20 June) as a proxy of active breeding. The same breeding proxy was applied to males and females as both partners contribute to incubation and chick rearing. We calibrated this proxy with those birds of which we do have detailed breeding monitoring data or detailed observations (see Additional File 3 for details). We found that the average proportion of time individuals spent in the breeding colony differed among colonies. Gulls from IJmuiden were considered breeding when they spent more than 45% of their time in the colony, and for gulls from Texel and Schiermonnikoog when they spent more than 32% in the colony (Figure S1 in Additional File 3).

We first tested whether the proportion of time spent at sea in the year of deployment affected the return rate of gulls in the following year. If this were the case, selective disappearance would need to be considered. Gulls which returned but had lost their GPS tag, or whose tags were not working were included as ‘returned’. Gulls that were not observed in the subsequent year were considered as not having returned. Detailed resighting data were only available for the Texel and IJmuiden colonies. Colony and sex were added as covariate as this may influence return rates (36, 37). Next, we examined if GPS tags affected the time gulls spent at sea, both within individuals and between individuals. To analyse whether carrying a GPS tag affected time spent at sea within individuals, we tested whether the difference of the proportion time spent at sea between year t and the previous year (t-1) differed from zero. We included only gulls that were assumed to be breeding, based on the breeding proxy described above. Colony and sex were added as covariates. We then compared the proportion of time spent at sea among birds during the year of deployment with the proportion of time spent at sea in birds tagged in previous years, including year as a covariate to account for annual variation. For this analysis, we only included gulls from the Texel colony as they were followed for the longest period. We did not include sex because of low sample sizes per year.

Statistical analyses were carried out in R version 4.3.2 (38). To analyse proportion of time spent at sea, in the colony or on land as response variable, we used a beta regression (betareg package (39) for which we estimated the 95% CI of the response parameter with package emmeans. To test return rates, we used a logistic regression using a binomial General Linear Model (0 is not returned, 1 is returned). The change of the proportion time spent at sea between years was analysed with a linear model with a Gaussian distribution, and we used the package emmeans (40) to estimate the marginal means and analysed whether the 95% CI of these estimates overlapped zero.

In the year of deployment, Lesser Black-backed Gulls from the different study colonies varied in the proportion of time they spent at sea, in the colony, or in a terrestrial habitat other than their colony (Table 1). Gulls breeding on Texel spent the highest proportion of time at sea compared to those breeding on Schiermonnikoog and IJmuiden (χ² = 32.576, df = 2, P < 0.001). Gulls breeding in IJmuiden spent a higher proportion of their time in the colony compared to the other colonies (χ² = 117.99, df = 2, P < 0.001), while those breeding on Schiermonnikoog spent the highest proportion of their time on land (χ² = 102.69, df = 2, P < 0.001).

Table 1

Proportion of time spent in the colony, at sea or on land per colony in the year of deployment. N shows the number of individuals. Proportion of time on land excludes the time it spends in the colony. Numbers in brackets denotes the 95% CI.
Colony	N	Proportion of time at sea	Proportion of time in the colony	Proportion of time on land
Schiermonnikoog	26	0.097 (0.066–0.128)	0.246 (0.197–0.296)	0.643 (0.580–0.706)
Texel	66	0.210 (0.176–0.235)	0.473 (0.435–0.510)	0.315 (0.277–0.354)
IJmuiden	29	0.095 (0.066–0.124)	0.651 (0.197–0.296)	0.283 (0.228–0.339)

Return rates

Of the 89 GPS-tagged gulls from which we could estimate a return rate (29 from IJmuiden, 60 from Texel; tagged prior to 2022), 0.80 (0.70–0.88 95% CI) returned in the following year. We found no relationship between the proportion of time spent at sea in the year of deployment and the return rate in the following year (Deviance = 0.029, df = 1, P = 0.87; Fig. 2). Sex or the colony where an individual was tagged did not significantly affected the return rate (Sex: Deviance = -0.032, df = 1, P = 0.86; colony: Deviance = -0.336, df = 1, P = 0.56).

Change in the proportion of time spent at sea within individuals

Almost every individual of which we had two or more years of GPS data and was actively breeding reduced its time spent at sea after the year of deployment (41 out of 44 birds, 93%, Fig. 3). From the fourth year from deployment the sample size had dropped to N = 4, so we only included data until the third year after tag deployment (N = 10). Averaged over colonies, the proportion time spent at sea on the individual level declined significantly with − 0.079 (-0.101 – -0.056 95% CI, Fig. 4) from 0.14 (0.12–0.17 95% CI) in the year of deployment to 0.07 (0.05–0.09 95% CI) the year after. In the second to third and third to fourth years after deployment, the use of marine habitats stabilised (0.06 (0.01–0.04 95% CI) and 0.07 (0.03–0.10 95% CI), respectively. This is also shown by the overlap of the 95% CI of the change in the proportion of time spent at sea with zero (0.019 (-0.012–0.051 95% CI) and − 0.001 (-0.044–0.041 95% CI), respectively) (Fig. 4). These changes in proportions spent at sea at the individual level differed per colony (Table 2) and were strongest for those breeding on Texel (difference between year of deployment and subsequent year: -0.101, -0.126 – -0.077 95% CI) and least for individuals breeding in IJmuiden (-0.050, -0.085–0.016 95% CI). Sex was not significant (Table 2).

Table 2

Results of the linear model of change in proportion of time spent at sea compared to year of deployment, colony and sex.
Change in proportion time spent at sea	F	DF	P
Year since deployment	15.290	2	< 0.001
Colony	3.480	2	0.037
Sex	0.012	1	0.911

Change in proportion of time at sea between individuals; newly tagged versus previously tagged gulls

In the year of deployment gulls breeding on Texel spent a higher proportion of their time at sea (0.209, 0.176–0.242 95% CI) than gulls tagged in previous years (0.097, 0.077–0.127 95% CI) (Fig. 5), beta regression: χ² = 22.231, df = 1, P < 0.001). We found no statistical differences between years (χ² = 13.496, df = 11, P = 0.26).

In this study, we explored the consequences of GPS tags fitted with a permanent harness on the at-sea going behaviour of Lesser Black-backed Gulls during the breeding season over multiple years. All of our re-trapped gulls had a bare patch underneath the GPS device, which, especially in cold water, compromises insulation and affects thermoregulation. We found no relationship in return rates of gulls and the proportion of time spent at sea. However, we observed a decrease in the proportion of time individuals spent at sea in the years following tag deployment (from 0.14 to 0.06, averaged over the colonies), suggesting an alteration in the gulls' foraging strategies. To rule out a potential effect of gradually changing external causes affecting time spent at sea of the entire population, we also compared newly tagged individuals and individuals tagged in the previous years within years. An example of external factors that may influence habitat use is the gradual implementation of the European Union’s Landing Obligation from 2015 to 2019 (also called discard-ban) which potentially reduces the amount of available discards for gulls following trawlers (41). Within the same year, newly tagged individuals breeding on Texel spent a higher proportion of time at sea (0.21) compared to gulls tagged in previous years (0.10). We therefore assume an internal cause for this shift away from sea rather than an external one.

The density of water-repellent contour feathers and the thermo-insulative downy layer is higher for aquatic birds compared to terrestrial birds, increasing protection against cold water temperatures (42). When this waterproof layer is disrupted, cold water can reach the skin, which may alter thermoregulation. Captive Mallards (Anas anas) with tags spend less time in the water then those without (25), which was suggested to be the result of lower thermoregulation caused by the tags. Lesser Black-backed Gulls forage in marine and terrestrial habitats (6, 27, 29), and when foraging at sea, gulls make shallow plunge dives when catching pelagic prey or when scavenging behind a trawler (43, 44). Due to the bare patch underneath the GPS device, assumingly from a lack of regrowth of the mantle feathers after postnuptial moult, foraging at sea may become energetically more costly due to increased thermoregulation. Even though previous studies showed that individual Lesser Black-backed Gulls may specialise on different habitats (27, 31), this higher energetic cost may be a reason to switch from foraging in marine environments to a more terrestrial lifestyle in the year after tagging.

For seabirds which do not have the option to switch to foraging on land, an permeable plumage could have even stronger detrimental effects. In a study on Manx Shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus), a deep-diving seabird, the foraging behaviour of GPS tagged birds (GPS tag taped at dorsal feathers; 17 g) and birds carrying a smaller and lighter geolocator device (attached to plastic leg ring, 2.5 g) which recorded salt-water immersion, it was found that trip duration was higher while foraging gain and flight time were lower in birds carrying the larger devices (24). A negative effect of increased mass and drag forces was proposed as a cause of these changes in behaviour, however it is also probable that the attachment method of using tape on the dorsal feathers decreased the bird’s waterproofness. The increased thermoregulatory costs could result in an increased energy need for maintaining their own body condition, also leading to longer trip durations or lower foraging gains. More studies on long-term behavioural changes in seabirds due to tracking devices are needed.

Although a disruption of the waterproof layer of feathers seems a logical explanation to understand the shift from sea to land of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, we should consider alternative, not necessarily mutual exclusive, explanations. Perhaps wearing a GPS device attached with a harness reduces their agility, which may affect their competitive ability. Competition and kleptoparasitism is high when foraging on discards from fishing trawlers (44). However, we do not know whether agility is more important at sea compared to other habitats. Another possibility is that the extra weight and drag may disproportionally affect gulls when they go to sea. In our study system, foraging at sea involves a higher energetic cost due a higher proportion of time spent in flight than foraging on land (22). In this case we would expect a more immediate response in the time gulls spent at sea compared to those wearing no GPS device, which is difficult to study in our system.

Even though Lesser Black-backed Gulls can forage on a broad range of diets, from marine to terrestrial (21), individual gulls are often found to be specialised (21, 27, 31). When their main food source disappears, such as with the closure of a landfill, individuals are able to adapt successfully to different sources (45). Whether a shift from sea to land due to tag deployment affects their fitness is not known and may depend on the location of the colony. For instance, a non-coastal colony in the Netherlands is thriving on a terrestrial diet (46), while in another colony it was shown that chicks on a terrestrial diet exhibited a slower development than when fed marine food (47).

Our results suggest that gulls experience long-term behavioural effects of wearing GPS devices, which have important implications when studying behaviour over time. Not all behaviours might be affected, for instance Lesser Black-backed Gulls show a high repeatability of migration distance and overwintering areas (4). Even though previous studies have not found effects on reproductive success within the year of tagging (26) or return rate the year after (17), the behavioural change we observed should be incorporated in ethical decisions whether or not the results of GPS tracking of gulls outweigh the costs for the individuals. As resightings of retrapped gulls of which the GPS device has been removed showed that the gap in the feathers has disappeared the following year, using a weak-link design of the harness which makes sure that the device detaches (48) would be a suitable option to improve the welfare of the birds when long-term tracking is not essential.

Ethics approval and consent to participate (Statement, name of ethics committee and committee’s reference number)

Bird ringing was permitted and the ringers were licensed by the Dutch Centre for Avian Migration & Demography. The GPS tagging work was done under licence numbers AVD8020020174225 and AVD80200202215854, following the Dutch Animal Welfare Act Articles 9, 10 and 11 of animal experiment documents.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset supporting the conclusions of this article is available in the Data Archive System (DAS) of NIOZ Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. It will be made open when the manuscript is published, until then it is accessible through the page https://dataverse.nioz.nl, with username 7b.bqh and password efcdad74.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests

Funding

RK and the tracking work on IJmuiden and Schiermonnikoog was supported by Open Technology Programme, project Interactions between birds and offshore wind farms: drivers, consequences and tools for mitigation (project number 17083), which is financed by NWO Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences, in collaboration with the following private and public partners: Rijkswaterstaat and Gemini Windpark. UvA-BiTS studies are facilitated by infrastructures for e-Ecology, developed with support of NLeSC and LifeWatch and carried out on the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of SURF Cooperative. KCJC developed and co-ordinated the studies at Texel on request of and with financial support of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ)

Authors' contributions

RK: conceptualization, formal analysis, methodology, writing—original draft and writing—review and editing; KCJC: conceptualization, project administration, resources and writing—review and editing; JS-B: conceptualization, project administration, data curation, funding acquisition, project administration, resources writing—review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements

We thank Fred Cottaar, Maarten van Kleinwee and Jose Verbeek for their substantial ringing and monitoring efforts in the IJmuiden colony and Kees Oosterbeek, Elspeth Sage and Rosanne Michielsen for all the work in the Schiermonnikoog colony. We also thank Susanne van Donk, Arnold Gronert, Threes Schreurs, Rafael Martig, Anne Dekinga and numerous volunteers and students who have helped collecting data over the years in the Texel colony. We thank Willem Bouten and Edwin Baaij for support with UvA-BiTS. We thank Stacy Shinneman for helping with GIS. We thank the Staatsbosbeheer, Natuurmonumenten, Ministry of Defense and PBN for to access the colonies..

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No competing interests reported.

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Long-term effects of GPS tagging on the time Lesser Black-backed Gulls spend at sea

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Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Background

Methods

Results

Return rates

Change in the proportion of time spent at sea within individuals

Change in proportion of time at sea between individuals; newly tagged versus previously tagged gulls

Discussion

Conclusion

Declarations

References

Additional Declarations

Supplementary Files

Status:

Version 1