25 research outputs found
Use of a Vial Equilibration Technique to Measure the Change in Fugacity Capacity of Avian Food and Feces Samples for 1,2,3,4-Tetrachlorobenzene
Predicting the transportation tendency and potential reservoirs of dioxins by compartment distribution coefficient
At–sea behavior varies with lunar phase in a nocturnal pelagic seabird, the swallow-tailed gull
Strong and predictable environmental variability can reward flexible behaviors among animals. We used long-term records of activity data that cover several lunar cycles to investigate whether behavior at-sea of swallow-tailed gulls Creagrus furcatus, a nocturnal pelagic seabird, varied with lunar phase in the Galápagos Islands. A Bayesian hierarchical model showed that nighttime at-sea activity of 37 breeding swallow-tailed gulls was clearly associated with changes in moon phase. Proportion of nighttime spent on water was highest during darker periods of the lunar cycle, coinciding with the cycle of the diel vertical migration (DVM) that brings prey to the sea surface at night. Our data show that at-sea behavior of a tropical seabird can vary with environmental changes, including lunar phase