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Fight or flight: can a tiny bird that breeds in greenland win the battle against climate change? Teens at a California school get the scoop from their adventurous science teacher
Science World, April 21, 2008 by Jeff Schnaufer
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Would your science teacher go to the ends of the earth for you? Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly, a teacher at Chico Junior High in Chico, California, did just that as she bundled up in a puffy parka and hopped aboard a 50-person plane bound for Greenland. For four weeks last summer, she braved temperatures that dipped as low as-5[degrees]C (23[degrees]F), all so she could report back to her students on the fate of a tiny bird that breeds on this icy island.
The seventh-grade science teacher joined Ann Harding, a biologist at Alaska Pacific University, to study the feeding habits of a bird known as the little auk (Alle alle). Every April and May, as many as 100,000 pairs of these black-and-white birds flock to the steep, rocky east coast of Greenland to lay their eggs.
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Alle alle is the most abundant seabird in the Atlantic. But global climate change may take its toll on the birds. Pella-Donnelly and members of the scientific team worked on near-vertical cliffs in an effort to determine whether warmer ocean currents could affect the bird's food supply--and, ultimately, its very survival.
SEA CHANGE
The world's oceans are regulated by the great ocean conveyor belt, which slowly wends its way around the globe. This system of ocean currents drives cold water from the Arctic Ocean down past Greenland's east coast (see map, above). This movement of the ocean conveyor, called thermohaline circulation, is driven by differences in water temperature and salinity (saltiness). Scientists fear global warming could weaken or shut down the ocean's conveyor.
According to Harding, that could have a domino effect--one that could hurt little auks. "With the [ocean] current change, the distribution of the water masses is going to change, so the food availability for the little auks would change," she says.
Little auks eat ocean-drifting animals called zooplankton. Their chicks feed almost entirely on a type called copepods--specifically, of the genus Calanus. The little auks off the east coast of Greenland feed on relatively large, energy-rich zooplankton. If ocean currents change, then smaller, less nutritious zooplankton might drift their way. That could spell trouble for the birds. The only way to fred out if the birds could be threatened by warming waters brought about by climate change is for the science team to observe the birds' foraging behavior and breeding biology.
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KEEPING TABS ON LITTLE AUKS
To monitor little auks' feeding behavior, Pella-Donnelly and the scientists needed to capture the birds, mark them with a yellow dye to identify them later, and attach a device called a time-depth recorder (TDR) to their chests. The TDR enables the scientists to determine how far the birds fly and how deep they dive to capture copepods. That way, they can determine how much energy the birds expend to find food.
Once the scientists have attached the TDRs, they release the birds. But the work is only just beginning for the team. Within five days, the scientists have to recapture the little auks. Otherwise, the salty ocean water will cause the TDRs to fall off, and the scientists will lose valuable data.
Recapturing the tagged birds is tricky work. "You're looking for a couple of birds in a flock of 100 or 500," says Harding. The scientists try to keep watch for yellow birds and gauge where the birds will land. Then, they use nets to trap the little auks. "They always land on a different rock. So we'll spend two days trying to catch one bird," says Harding.
Between catches of the tagged birds, the team gathered data on untagged birds. They weighed them and extracted zooplankton from little pouches under the birds' mouths to see what food they had caught to bring back to their chicks at the colony. The scientists also monitored chicks to see how many servings of copepods their parents fed them. The team concluded that for a parent to feed itself and its chick, it would need to catch about 65,000 copepods a day, says Harding. That number could skyrocket if warmer waters forced little auks to feed on smaller, energy-poor zooplankton.
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CLASSROOM LESSONS
Overall, the research team caught and gathered data from roughly 400 birds. A partner team, led by biologist Nina Karnovsky of Pomona College in California, collected similar data on little auks breeding in Spitsbergen, a Norwegian island located east of Greenland. Collective data will be used to understand how little auks respond to different food availabilities in the Greenland Sea.
Although the scientists are still drawing conclusions from the data they collected, Pella-Donnelly is back at school sharing stories about her experiences. Her students get to see photos of her research and even hold little auk eggshells.
"I thought that it was really cool that they had a teacher from Chico go and do something like that and we got to learn about it," says Marc Christensen, 12, one of Pella-Donnelly's seventh-grade students. Mara was so inspired that she wants to become a teacher so she can go on similar expeditions.
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