Description
Original provider: Greenland Institute of Natural Resources Dataset credits: Greenland Institute of Natural Resources Abstract: The study of long-distance migration provides insights into the habits and performance of organisms at the limit of their physical abilities. The Arctic tern Sterna paradisaea is the epitome of such behavior; despite its small size (<125 g), banding recoveries and at-sea surveys suggest that its annual migration from boreal and high Arctic breeding grounds to the Southern Ocean may be the longest seasonal movement of any animal. Our tracking of 11 Arctic terns fitted with miniature (1.4 g) geolocators revealed that these birds do indeed travel huge distances (more than 80,000 km annually for some individuals). As well as confirming the location of the main wintering region, we also identified a previously unknown oceanic stopover area in the North Atlantic used by birds from at least two breeding populations (from Greenland and Iceland). Although birds from the same colony took one of two alternative southbound migration routes following the African or South American coast, all returned on a broadly similar, sigmoidal trajectory, crossing from east to west in the Atlantic in the region of the equatorial Intertropical Convergence Zone. Arctic terns clearly target regions of high marine productivity both as stopover and wintering areas, and exploit prevailing global wind systems to reduce flight costs on long-distance commutes. Purpose: The Arctic tern is known to make the longest annual migration in the animal kingdom. During its breeding season, it is found far to the north where summer days are long, and it winters far south in the southern hemisphere, where the days are longest during November to February. This means that the Arctic tern probably experiences more sun light during a calendar year than any other creature on Earth. The long-distance travel of the Arctic tern is well-known both amongst researchers and in the broader public. Now, for the first time, technological advances allow us to follow the Arctic tern on its immense journey, practically from pole to pole. Supplemental information: Four erroneous points were removed from the original dataset: ARTE_410, 9/17/2007 noon; ARTE_370, 9/13/2007 noon; ARTE_373, 9/15/2007 noon and 9/16/2007 noon. Sand Island (74.263 degrees N, 20.160 degrees W), northeast Greenland, is the breeding colony for these Arctic terns and was placed on the map (red-orange square). Sand Island can be used as the beginning and end of all tracks, but since exact dates of the starting and ending of the migration were not available (high-Arctic zone = continuous day light during summer = poor positions when using geolocators), the tracklines for each animal were not mapped to and from the breeding colony.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 3,468 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Egevang, C. 2012. Tracking of Arctic tern migrations 2007-2008. Data downloaded from OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/705) on yyyy-mm-dd.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is OBIS-SEAMAP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 767f57dd-bdb8-44cb-bf20-f9aafafa4137. OBIS-SEAMAP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.
Keywords
Occurrence,long-distance migration,at-sea hotspot,global wind systems,geolocator,trans-equatorial migration; Observation; Occurrence
External data
The resource data is also available in other formats
| OBIS-SEAMAP Dataset Page | http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/705 UTF-8 Interactive map |
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| FGDC Metadata | http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/705/xml UTF-8 XML |
Contacts
- Owner ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Metadata Provider ●
- Distributor
Geographic Coverage
Greenland,high-Arctic,Antarctica,Weddell Sea
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-76.84, -62.56], North East [75, 107.07] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Scientific names are based on the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).
| Species | Sterna paradisaea (Arctic Tern) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 2007-08-13 / 2008-05-31 |
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Project Data
No Description available
| Title | Tracking of Arctic tern migrations 2007-2008 |
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| Funding | NA |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Owner
Sampling Methods
NA
| Study Extent | NA |
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Method step description:
- NA
Collection Data
| Collection Name | zd_705 |
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| Collection Identifier | zd_705 |
| Parent Collection Identifier | OBIS-SEAMAP |
Additional Metadata
marine, harvested by iOBIS
| Purpose | The Arctic tern is known to make the longest annual migration in the animal kingdom. During its breeding season, it is found far to the north where summer days are long, and it winters far south in the southern hemisphere, where the days are longest during November to February. This means that the Arctic tern probably experiences more sun light during a calendar year than any other creature on Earth. The long-distance travel of the Arctic tern is well-known both amongst researchers and in the broader public. Now, for the first time, technological advances allow us to follow the Arctic tern on its immense journey, practically from pole to pole. |
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| Alternative Identifiers | http://ipt.env.duke.edu/resource?r=zd_705 |