Seabird movement reveals the ecological footprint of fishing vessels

摘要: Exploitation of the seas is currently unsustainable, with increasing demand for marine resources placing intense pressure on Earth's largest ecosystem [1]. The scale anthropogenic effects varies from local to entire ocean basins [1-3]. For example, discards commercial capture fisheries can have both positive and negative impacts scavengers at population community-level [2-6], although this driven by individual foraging behaviour [3,7]. Currently, we little understanding which animals initiate such behaviours. We use known interaction between a wide-ranging seabird, Northern gannet Morus bassanus[3], investigate how fishing vessels affect birds' behaviours in near real-time. document footprint vessels' (≥15 m length) influence decisions (≤11 km), potential underlying behavioural mechanism, revealing birds respond differently depending gear type activity. Such influences important implications fisheries, including proposed discard ban [8]), wider management.