Regional patterns in foraging ecology between adult roseate and common terns in the Northwest Atlantic

Co-occurring species with similar resource requirements often partition ecological niches. In the Northwest Atlantic (NWA), endangered roseate terns (Sterna dougallii) nest almost exclusively in coastal island colonies alongside common terns (S. hirundo). Roseate terns are prey specialists compared to common terns, which are opportunistic generalists; however, the two species forage on similar resources during the breeding season. The degree to which these species overlap in their adult foraging ecologies is not well understood. We compared the isotopic niches of nesting adult roseate and common terns by analyzing stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopes in eggshell membrane tissues collected in 2018 and...

Categories: Data; Tags: Gulf of Maine, Long Island Sound, Northwest Atlantic, Southern New England, Sterna sp., All tags... Terns, USGS Science Data Catalog (SDC), Wildlife Biology, biota, eggshells, foraging ecology, stable isotopes, trophic niche, Fewer tags