a. What are the effects of food abundance in early spring on date of laying, clutch size, and egg size?
b. What effects do storms have at different stages of the reproductive schedule?
c. What effects do quantitative and qualitative (species composition of prey) changes in food supply have on the survival of chicks?
d. What are the similarities and differences between what parents eat and what they feed their chicks?
Although this is important basic biological knowledge, it contributes little to conservation efforts because food differences result from changes in the ocean over which humans can have little effect.
7. To learn more about prey species and their availability to marine birds:
a. To know more about the breeding areas, reproductive rates, growth rates, and routes of dispersal of the major prey food species. In most areas a few species of teleost fish (e.g., Ammodytes) or Crustacea (e.g., copepods, euphausids, mycids, or amphipods) make up most of the food of marine birds. Yet, the barest minimum is known about the biology of such species. A good first estimate of the "condition" of the marine environment can probably be made by measuring reproductive rates and growth rates of these key prey species. Hence an efficient (though indirect) way to measure those rates may be by monitoring reproduction of birds.
b. To know more about the density and distribution of key prey items season by season, and to learn more about the relation of their abundance and distribution to their availability to birds, as Bédard (1969) showed for Calanus to least auklets, and Thysanoessa to crested auklets.
There are some indications that the population size of prey items can vary widely without having a marked effect on the numbers of their predators. Does commercial fishing for the large, predatory fish have a measurable effect on the food available to marine fish? Do the large pollock and salmon fisheries (high seas) make zooplankton available to smaller alcids? Do marine birds affect a fishery?
c. To know more about the oceanography of continental shelf waters, more specifically the waters between 6 and 60 m deep. The shallow waters of continental shelves are some of the most productive of sea waters, but are among the least studied. Although some species (black-legged kittiwakes, tufted puffins, and fulmars) move into deep waters, many species of marine birds of northern waters gather in large numbers on preferred feeding grounds at or near the edges of continental shelves during their winter season (Fisher 1952; Tuck 1960).