The diet of British seabirds
The Marine Ecosystems Research Programme address key knowledge gaps in marine ecosystem research. By bringing together existing data and targeted new data, the programme will integrate these data with current models and knowledge of ecosystem services within a common framework, in order to improve our understanding of the whole UK marine ecosystem. The programme will facilitate the development of a more accurate suite of marine ecosystem models and provide vital evidence, tools and advice to policymakers and environmental managers.
As part of the ecosystems assessment we are looking at the top predators and specifically at the seabirds and what they consumed. For the ecosystem modelling we provided an as exhaustive as possible inventory what exactly seabirds consume, which will allow looking at variation both in time and in space and can give indications of drivers of the seabirds’ diet.
Researchers
Funding
MERP is jointly funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).