Demographic responses of North Atlantic seabirds to seasonal ocean warming

This is data underlying the analysis in the study by Layton-Matthews et al. "Demographic responses of North Atlantic seabirds to seasonal ocean warming" in PNAS. Abstract Climate-driven ocean warming is profoundly reshaping marine ecosystems, with cascading effects on biodiversity and trophic interactions. For migratory marine predators such as seabirds, demographic responses to warming depend on when and where populations are exposed, across the annual cycle. Therefore, integrating demographic monitoring and tracking data, across broad geographic and temporal scales is essential, given the spatial and seasonal variability in ocean warming. Here, we integrated long-term demographic data, seasonal distributions and sea surface temperatures, for 26 populations of five seabird species breeding in the North-East Atlantic to assess the effects of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on reproduction, survival and population growth trajectories. Demographic responses varied widely among populations and seasons, but negative effects were most consistently associated with warming during the post-breeding autumn period, particularly in the Barents and East Greenland Seas. Winter warming also corresponded to reduced survival, while breeding-season SSTs showed fewer effects on reproductive rates. Populations with dual responses to warming in both the breeding and non-breeding seasons had the lowest projected population growth rates under SSTs given a high emissions scenario. These results demonstrate that population vulnerability reflects the interaction between seabirds’ year-round distributions and regional ocean warming. This underlines the need to integrate year-round tracking and long-term monitoring to inform conservation strategies and marine spatial planning to ensure climate-resilient marine ecosystems.