Alastair Franke

Stable isotope mixing models (SIMMs) are widely used for characterizing wild animal diets. Such models rely upon using accurate trophic discrimination factors (TDFs) to account for the digestion, incorporation, and assimilation of food. Existing methods to calculate TDFs rely on controlled feeding trials that are time-consuming, often impractical f...

Availability of suitable habitat affects the distribution and abundance of Arctic fauna, influencing how species respond to climate change and disturbance from resource extraction in the region. We surveyed Arctic ground squirrels (Urocitellus parryii Richardson, 1825) using distance sampling transects and concurrently counted microtine rodent burr...

Large areas of the Arctic remain poorly surveyed, creating biological knowledge gaps as scientists and managers grapple with issues of increasing resource extraction and climate change. We modelled spatiotemporal patterns in abundance for avian species in the low Arctic ecosystem near the community of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, from 2015 to 2017. We em...

The Arctic is entering a new ecological state, with alarming consequences for humanity. Animal-borne sensors offer a window into these changes. Although substantial animal tracking data from the Arctic and subarctic exist, most are difficult to discover and access. Here, we present the new Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a growing collection...

The Arctic is entering a new ecological state, with alarming consequences for humanity. Animal-borne sensors offer a window into these changes. Although substantial animal tracking data from the Arctic and subarctic exist, most are difficult to discover and access. Here, we present the new Arctic Animal Movement Archive (AAMA), a growing collection...

Migratory species display a range of migration patterns between irruptive (facultative) to regular (obligate), as a response to different predictability of resources. In the Arctic, snow directly influences resource availability. The causes and consequences of different migration patterns of migratory species as a response to the snow conditions re...

Lemmings are a key component of tundra food webs and changes in their dynamics can affect the whole ecosystem. We present a comprehensive overview of lemming monitoring and research activities, and assess recent trends in lemming abundance across the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2000, lemmings have been monitored at 49 sites of which 38 are still acti...

In the original published article, some of the symbols in figure 1A were modified incorrectly during the typesetting and publication process. The correct version of the figure is provided in this correction.

While collating contributions and comments from 36 researchers, the coordinating authors accidentally omitted Dr. Suzanne Carrière from the list of contributing co-authors. Dr. Carrière's data are described in Tables 1 and 3, Figure 2 and several places in the narrative.The new author list is thus updated in this article.

Tundra-breeding birds face diverse conservation challenges, from accelerated rates of Arctic climate change to threats associated with highly migratory life histories. Here we summarise the status and trends of Arctic terrestrial birds (88 species, 228 subspecies or distinct flyway populations) across guilds/regions, derived from published sources,...

This review provides a synopsis of the main findings of individual papers in the special issue Terrestrial Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing Arctic. The special issue was developed to inform the State of the Arctic Terrestrial Biodiversity Report developed by the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Program (CBMP) of the Conservation of Arctic Flor...

The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) and the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) are top avian predators of Arctic ecosystems. Although existing monitoring efforts are well established for both species, collaboration of activities among Arctic scientists actively involved in research of large falcons in the Nearctic and Palearctic has been poorly coord...

The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) and the gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus) are top avian predators of Arctic ecosystems. Although existing monitoring efforts are well established for both species, collaboration of activities among Arctic scientists actively involved in research of large falcons in the Nearctic and Palearctic has been poorly coord...

Raptors are important environmental indicators because they are apex predators and can be sensitive to disturbance. Few studies have addressed habitat preferences of tundra-nesting raptors, and those that exist have focused on fine-scale characteristics. With increasing economic development predicted to occur throughout the Canadian Arctic, the inv...

Aim Animal movement is an important determinant of individual survival, population dynamics and ecosystem structure and function. Nonetheless, it is still unclear how local movements are related to resource availability and the spatial arrangement of resources. Using resident bird species and migratory bird species outside the migratory period, we...

Indirect impacts of climate change, mediated by new species interactions (including pathogens or parasites) will likely be key drivers of biodiversity reorganization. In addition, direct effects of extreme weather events remain understudied. Simultaneous investigation of the significance of ectoparasites on host populations and extreme weather even...

Detecting and planning for ecosystem changes from climate and land-use alteration is limited by uncertainty about the current distribution of many species. This is exacerbated in remote areas like the Arctic, where the impacts of climate change are the strongest and where industrial exploration and development are expanding. Using remotely-sensed e...

Predation can shape community structure, so understanding the diet of predators is an important aspect of ecology. Stable isotope analysis using Bayesian mixing models is a potentially powerful method of estimating diet, but results are often ambiguous. A commonly cited advantage of Bayesian mixing models is the ability to include informative prior...

Inclement weather can negatively affect breeding birds directly by exposure to factors such as severe temperature and rainfall, or indirectly by reducing food supply. During a three-year study of Arctic peregrine falcons Falco peregrinus tundrius breeding in Nunavut, Canada, we estimated annual prey density at a biologically relevant scale (i.e. th...

Climate change can affect the distribution, abundance, and phenology of organisms globally. Variations in the timing of passage during autumn and spring migration can have consequences at individual and population levels. We assessed whether global climatic indexes and increasing air temperature over a 28 yr period were concurrent with shifts in th...

For migratory species, acquisition and allocation of energy after arrival on the breeding grounds largely determine reproductive decisions. Few studies have investigated underlying physiological mechanisms driving variation in breeding phenology so far. We linked physiological state to individual timing of breeding in pre-laying arctic-nesting fema...

This note describes nestling mortality in Arctic Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus tundrius) due to the biting effects of blood-feeding black flies (Diptera: Simuliidae). At a nest site near Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Canada (62˚49′ N, 92˚05′ W), a brood of four nestlings died on 20 July 2013 from the direct effects of severe bites attributed to blac...

I used a Lincoln–Petersen model to estimate the population size of northern-reared hatch-year (the cohort of individuals known to have hatched during the calendar year in which they were banded) peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) based on mark and recapture data from northern North America (including Greenland) from 1970 through 2010. This analys...

Cameras at nest sites are becoming a common means for quantifying nestling diet, but there are two problems associated with this method: food items delivered to nestlings often cannot be identified, and quantification of error around diet estimates for individual nests is problematic. We present a novel method of incorporating unidentified food ite...

The historical decline of the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) in North America during the 20th century was mainly attributed to reproductive failure due to the accumulation of persistent organochloride pollutants. As a direct result to this finding, the Arctic Raptor Project was established in 1982, and its goal was to monitor the breeding succ...

In this poster, we provide the first evidence of the direct effects of black flies on the reproductive success of a bird species nesting in the Canadian Arctic, the peregrine falcon. Our results suggest that nestling survival can be greatly reduced during years of ephemeral black fly outbreaks. Although we don’t know if such parasite outbreaks are...

Climate change is occurring more rapidly in the Arctic than other places in the world, which is likely to alter the distribution and abundance of migratory birds breeding there. A warming climate can provide benefits to birds by decreasing spring snow cover, but increases in the frequency of summer rainstorms, another product of climate change, may...

Although animal population dynamics have often been correlated with fluctuations in precipitation, causal relationships have rarely been demonstrated in wild birds. We combined nest observations with a field experiment to investigate the direct effect of rainfall on survival of peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) nestlings in the Canadian Arctic. W...

While intra-population variability in resource use is ubiquitous, little is known of how this measure of niche diversity varies in space and its role in population dynamics. Here we examined how heterogeneous breeding environments can structure intra-population niche variation in both resource use and reproductive output. We investigated intra-popu...

This note describes an observation of infanticide in the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus tundrius). During the summer of 2011, a marked adult female and an unmarked adult male produced and hatched two eggs at a known and regularly monitored nest site. Motion-sensitive camera images indicated that the adults attended to the two nestlings and fed...

We describe an observation of post-fledging double nest switching and alloparenting in the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus tundrius). During the summer of 2010, a 36-day-old male Peregrine Falcon that had been marked with leg bands was seen flying from its natal site and was subsequently observed at a neighboring nest site that contained two nes...

In long-lived species, population growth rate is highly sensitive to changes in adult survival. Despite the growing concerns regarding recent climate changes, few studies have investigated the effect of climatic conditions on survival in long-lived wildlife that are either resident or breed in the Arctic. In this study, we evaluated the effect of c...

In territorial species, the size and distribution of defended home ranges can influence the breeding density of individuals and ultimately population productivity. Research on Arctic peregrine falcons breeding in Nuanvut indicates that overall productivity has slowly declined for the past 30 years, which may be driven by density dependent factors....

The historical decline of the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) in North America was attributed mainly to reproductive failure associated with persistent organochlorine pollutants, in particular DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) It is generally assumed that declining trends in pesticide loads will be accompanied by a corresponding Increase...

Elk Island National Park in western Canada provides an ideal case study for an economic carrying capacity es-timate because it supports high density of four species of ungulates (11/km 2), lacks large predators, and is enclosed by a 2.1-meter mesh fence. This high density of ungulates has created persistent management challenges by altering vegetat...

We explore hidden Markov models (HMMs) as a predictive modeling technique and assess the degree to which models encapsulate movement and kill-site behavior in three wolf packs that reside year-round in west central Alberta, Canada. Although HMMs have been used successfully to infer use of space by individual woodland caribou, their behavioral state...

We explore how doubly stochastic, multiple-observation hidden Markov models (HMMs) may infer meaningful descriptions of woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus) movement and behavior. Parameterized models allowed us to predict behavioral states (bedding, feeding and relocating), relative bout length and transitions, as well as most likely behavioral st...