Stable Isotope and Corticosterone in Bering Sea Seabird Feathers 1911-2015

A 20 mm segment of primary feathers were collected from red-legged kittiwake, black-legged kittiwake, thick-billed murre, common murre, and least auklet museum specimens and field captured breeding individuals to determine whether and how seabirds breeding in the Bering Sea have responded to changes in oceanographic conditions. Head feathers from red-legged kittiwakes were also collected. Feather samples were analyzed for feather corticosterone concentration, an indicator of nutritional stress, and nitrogen and carbon stable isotope ratios, proxies for foraging behavior which indicate trophic level (nitrogen) and whether prey was of a more pelagic or shelf origin (carbon and sulfur, red-legged kittiwakes only). Data are available in a .csv spreadsheet. This dataset was generated as part of NPRB project 1410.