Nocturnal Habitat Selection of Surf Scoters in the Salish Sea

Melanitta perspicillataBy L. Hamiltonƚ, J. R. Evensonŧ, and D. L. Robertsƚ

ȽGraduate Program on the Environment, The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, email: hamlin06@evergreen.eduŦ Waterfowl Survey and Sea Duck Specialist, WDFW, email: joseph.evenson@dfw.wa.gov

IntroductionSurf Scoters are sea ducks that utilize the

Salish Sea during all annual life stages

except breeding. They are present all year,

but most common from August through

May. They are most often observed

foraging for mussels, clams and herring

eggs along the shoreline. Surf Scoters are

one of the least studied of all North

American duck species and populations

indicate a declining trend since 1955.

Winter estimates from the Puget Sound

indicate a 77 percent decline since 1979.

Research Objectives1) Determine Surf Scoter nocturnal habitat use area characteristics

2) Determine what factors influence the selection of identified resting areas through resource selection probability analysis

3) Develop predictive models to estimate likely nocturnal resting areas across the Salish Sea.

As is true for most marine bird species, all Surf Scoter surveys have

been conducted during diurnal periods, resulting in distribution data that

lacks a nocturnal component. These data are what currently guides

conservation and management decisions in the Salish Sea. Without a

nocturnal component, our knowledge on winter habitat requirements for

Surf Scoters is incomplete and planning efforts are insufficient.

Determining nocturnal use area habitat characteristics fills an important

data gap within Surf Scoter winter habitat requirements and overall

ecology.

To identify influencing factors Washington

Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW),

with funding from the Sea Duck Joint

Venture, implanted surf scoters with Platform

Terminal Transmitters (PTT’s) during

winters of 2003-2006 to document the

ecology of their annual life stages.

MethodsTo determine how far Surf Scoters will travel between diurnal foraging

areas and nocturnal resting areas, we measured distance traveled

between diurnal and nocturnal locations when both were present within

one Argos duty cycle. We compared distances traveled between four

regions within the Salish Sea with analysis of variance and means

comparisons for all pairs (ANOVA, Tukey-Kramer HSD; JMP®,

Version 11. SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, 1989-2007).

We investigated nocturnal habitat preferences with a use vs. pseudo-

non-use resource selection design. We generated 5,100 random

locations within the Salish Sea Study area using ArcMap. For each

nocturnal satellite location and random pseudo-non-use location we

measured minimum distance to shore, water depth, tidal current,

exposure of nearest shoreline and vessel traffic density using various

spatial layers in ArcMap. We compared measurements between use and

pseudo-non-use points with t-tests (JMP®, Version 11).

We determined which habitat variables were the best predictors of

nocturnal presence using logistic regression (JMP®, Version 11) and

evaluated competing models with Akaike’s information criterion

adjusted for small sample sizes and AICc weights. Through the subset

model selection approach we evaluated 4 predictor variables; minimum

distance to shore, water depth, root-mean square tidal current, and

vessel traffic density.

ResultsFrom the original filtered

data sets from 34 Surf

Scoters, we measured 233

movements between diurnal

and nocturnal locations

throughout the Salish Sea

resulting in an average

distance traveled of 3,967m.

ANOVA revealed variation

between regions (F3 = 5.22,

Data Preparation

Removed:

- Low Accuracy Data

- Civil Twilight

Locations

- Diurnal Locations

- Flightless Moult

Locations

- Auto correlated

Locations

Use

Pseudo-non-

use F

Range of

nocturnal use

Variable 𝑋 SE 𝑋 SE

Min Dist to Shore (m) 1388 33 3605 49 -37.14*** 2 - 8415

Water Depth (m) -34 41 -115 1.42 42.83 ˗251 - 0

Tidal Current (RMS) 0.09 0.002 0.22 0.003 -33.15*** 0.01 – 0.87

Shoreline ExposureA 2.40 0.60 3.1 0.01 0.09***(U) 1-4

Vessel Traffic Density 0.22 0.02 0.54 0.03 -8.23*** 0 – 9.12A signifies that difference was evaluated with chi squared likelihood statistic.

*** signifies P < 0.0001 at 95% confidence.

Table 1. Mean comparisons for 5 habitat variables.

𝒑 = 0.1257 + 0.0131*Depth + -4.9350*Tidal + -0.0519*Vessel +

-4.48E-05*MinDistShore

Of the 15 candidate nocturnal presence prediction models, the full

model best fit the data, accounting for 71% of the AICc weight and was

3.5 times more likely to explain habitat preference than the next best

fitting model. This is strong but not unequivocal (w>0.90) support for

the best AICc model, so model averaging (Burnham and Anderson 2002)

was conducted. Only the 4 confidence set models were averaged as they

accounted for 99% of the AICc weight. This resulted in our nocturnal

presence model below:

DiscussionWe provide a quantitative analysis that shows that Surf Scoters utilize nocturnal habitats that differ from documented diurnal distributions. Our

nocturnal location data has confirmed that Surf Scoters move offshore to deeper water to rest in comparison to diurnal foraging areas. The longer

distances traveled in the South Puget Sound region reinforces the importance of the characteristics that are selected. This region is almost entirely

comprised of narrow passages and inlets and demonstrates that Surf Scoters balance utilizing preferred nocturnal habitat, with minimizing distances

from food resources These findings set a precedent for future studies regarding a variety of marine birds displaying similar movement and behavior

characteristics and identifies a need to consider nocturnal distribution when assessing the conservation status of marine bird species in general.

Habitat in deeper and more open water is accompanied by threats (e.g. vessel traffic) that are different than those Scoters face in nearshore habitats.

Washington State waters see ~ 230,000 transits annually, including nearly 8,000 deep draft vessel movements. Our nocturnal data demonstrated a

strong avoidance of high vessel traffic in the Salish Sea. As rest periods are critical for conserving energy during winter months, vessel disturbance

would be detrimental during nocturnal periods. This suggest the possibility of night time vessel traffic limiting available nocturnal habitat for Surf

Scoters.

In addition to vessel traffic being a direct daily disturbance, bird distributions that overlap or occur in close proximity to oil transportation are at

greater risk of contamination. Many small oil spills (1000 L or less) go undetected or unreported. These small-scale oil discharges are more widely

distributed and happen more frequently, causing a greater ecological impact and potentially have cumulative effects on seabird populations. Also,

determination of important nocturnal use areas will improve catastrophic oil spill response plans, which do not currently account for nocturnal bird

use areas in Washington.

Figure 3. Map showing nocturnal locations in

purple, diurnal locations in yellow and current

tanker vessel traffic density in the Salish Sea.

3967

3629

3854

3218

6066

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

ALL REGIONS

STRAIT OF GEORGIA

NORTH PUGET SOUND

CENTRAL PUGET SOUND

SOUTH PUGET SOUND

Means comparisons between 1,064 nocturnal use locations and 5,002

pseudo-non-use locations revealed differences in minimum distance to

shore, root-mean-squared tidal current, exposure of nearest shoreline and

vessel traffic density (Table 1).

Figure 2. Average distance traveled (m) by Surf Scoters

between diurnal and nocturnal locations within a 24

hour period within the Salish Sea.

P = 0.0017) and a post hoc Tukey test showed a difference in mean

distance traveled between the South Puget Sound and the Central Puget

Sound region (q = 2.59, P = 0.0008) (Figure 2).

Distance (in meters)

Figure 1. Flow chart of data manipulation

conducted in preparation for analysis.