For a change, some positive news on Wandering Albatrosses

[Angus Wilson]

A new study published in Science reports that shifting wind conditions
in the Southern Ocean have resulted in shorter feeding runs and heavy
chicks (hurray!) but warns that this may be temporary if the shifts
continue as modeled (booo!). The study is interesting because it
highlights the complex relationship between the fixed positions of
nesting islands and ever changing oceanic currents, prevailing wind
directions and areas of food abundance. Unfortunately the paper is pay
wall protected (i.e. not public access) but let me now if you are
anxious to read it but don't have access.

Henri Weimerskirch, Maite Louzao, Sophie de Grissac and Karine Delord
Changes in Wind Pattern Alter Albatross Distribution and Life-History
Traits
Science 13 Jan 2012 Vol. 335 no. 6065 pp. 211-214 DOI: 10.1126/science.
1210270

Here is a brief perspective on the paper from ScienceShots

While many species have suffered from climate change, the wandering
albatross seems to have benefited. Long-term warming in recent decades
has boosted temperatures and altered precipitation in many regions,
but it has also increased average wind speeds over the southwestern
Indian Ocean. Thanks to the increased wind speeds there, the albatross
has, on average, gained weight and bred more successfully, researchers
report online today in Science. Specifically, higher wind speeds have
meant that foraging trips during nesting season, throughout which
males and females take turns incubating eggs and tending to chicks,
are shorter—an average of 9.7 days in 2008, compared with 12.4 days in
1970. And shorter shifts on the nest, in turn, resulted in fewer
abandoned eggs and chicks: While, on average, about 66% of eggs laid
in 1970 resulted in live chicks; in 2008 that proportion had jumped to
about 77%. Shorter shifts babysitting also caused the albatrosses to
fatten up: Even though the birds aren't lengthier, they weigh, on
average, 1 kilogram more now than they did 20 years ago—a 10% to 12%
increase in body mass. This helps these long-distance champions better
withstand the stresses imposed on their wings and bodies by stronger
winds and, therefore, better exploit the windier conditions wrought by
climate change, the researchers say.