Change of biodemographic parameters for the Black legged Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla on Hornoeya, Eastern Finnmark, Norway

Long term spatialised demographic data obtained as part of a CNRS/IPEV (French Polar Institute) research program aiming at examining the response of animal populations to environmental variability at different spatial scales. The study system is a host-parasite system at three levels, involving arctic seabirds, specifically the Black-legged Kittiwake _Rissa tridactyla_, as hosts, the tick Ixodes uriae as their ectoparasite and Lyme disease agent Borrelia burgdorferi as a microparasite. The role of the variability in host phenotypic responses (immunology and behaviour) and of the coevolution between the hosts and the vector tick for the ecology and evolution of such interactions at different scales are studied. In addition to laboratory analyses, the approach combines field experiment to the analyses of data and samples collected in a spatialised context.

Field surveys of a series of study plots within the island of Hornoeya, Northern Norway, provides data on breeding success, laying dates, clutch size, mean egg size and adult survival rate estimates based on capture-mark-recapture analyses of colour ringed birds.

A specifity of the data is that a specific monitoring of epidemiological/parasitological parameters is conducted in parallel (see the corresponding Metadata).