Today's guest blog is by Lizzy Green and the Sandeel literature review she has been working on: "I’m a Species and Habitats Officer on the Roseate Tern Life Project in the Nature Recovery Unit and have been working with the RSPB since January 2017. The main objective of my role is to improve our understanding of tern diets around the British Isles by gathering and synthesising information from the peer-reviewed and grey literature. This involves collating information on what terns are eating, how this varies spatially, temporally and between species, and how this variation in diet affects tern breeding success. I am also analysing the impacts of diet on tern productivity using a long-term data set of Arctic tern chick provisioning from two sites on Anglesey. However, another crucial aspect of my role is gathering ecological information about key prey species for terns, such as the lesser sandeel (Ammodytes marinus). The lesser sandeel is one of the most important prey species for seabirds around the UK, providing a high-lipid food source that, due to its long, thin body shape, is easy for chicks to swallow. However, the availability of sandeels fluctuates between years and can have severe impacts on seabird breeding success, particularly for populations with little or no access to alternative prey. Further, adult sandeels demonstrate limited dispersal ability and high habitat specificity, rendering this species vulnerable to local depletion and climate-driven reductions in their zooplankton prey. In this literature review I collate information on the ecology, status, and distribution of the lesser sandeel, consider the drivers of inter-annual variation in populations, summarise evidence demonstrating the importance of the species for seabirds and discuss the current and potential impacts of climate change, fisheries and other factors on sandeel populations."
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