Breeding together: Modeling synchrony in productivity in a seabird community

Abstract

With environmental conditions changing rapidly, there is a need to move beyond single-species models and consider how communities respond to environmental drivers. We present a modeling approach that allows estimation of multispecies synchrony in productivity, or its components, and the contribution of environmental covariates as synchronizing and desynchronizing agents. We apply the model to long-term breeding success data for five seabird species at a North Atlantic colony. Our Bayesian analysis reveals varying degrees of synchrony in overall productivity, with a common signal indicating a significant decline in productivity between 1986 and 2009. Productivity in seabirds reflects conditio..