Linking population trends of Antarctic shag (Phalacrocorax bransfieldensis) and fish at Nelson Island, South Shetland Islands

BARRERA-ORO E.; CASAUX R,

POLAR BIOLOGY

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2016 vol. 39 p. 1491 - 1497

0722-4060

Abstract This study analyses and relates long term information on population trends ofinshore demersal fish and Antarctic shags of the South Shetland Islands. Theanalysis is complemented with comparable information on diet, foraging patternsand breeding output of shags from the Danco Coast, western Antarctic Peninsula,an area that has remained out of the influence of the commercial fishery. A declining trend observed in shag colonies at theSouth Shetland Islands in the decades of 1990 and 2000 may have been influencedto some extent by the concomitant decrease in the abundance of two of theirmain preys, the nototheniids Nototheniarossii and Gobionotothen gibberifrons,owed to the intensive industrial fishing in the area in the late 1970s.