David Grémillet

David Grémillet
French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive

PhD

About

315
Publications
114,979
Reads
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12,617
Citations
Citations since 2017
116 Research Items
6652 Citations
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Introduction
David Grémillet is a biological oceanographer with a keen interest for animal ecophysiology and movement ecology. His work aims at understanding seabird responses to global changes, and at enhancing marine conservation strategies. He is CNRS research director at the CEFE in Montpellier and Research Associate at the University of Cape Town.
Additional affiliations
October 2010 - present
University of Cape Town
Position
  • Senior Research Associate
October 2010 - October 2016
Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive
Position
  • Senior Researcher
July 2007 - present
French National Centre for Scientific Research
Position
  • Senior Researcher
Education
October 2004 - October 2004
University of Strasbourg
Field of study
  • Ecology
March 1994 - March 1997
March 1992 - March 1993

Publications

Publications (315)
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
Each winter, the North Atlantic Ocean is the stage for numerous cyclones, the most severe ones leading to seabird mass-mortality events called ‘‘winter wrecks.’’ During these, thousands of emaciated seabird carcasses are washed ashore along European and North American coasts. Winter cyclones can therefore shape seabird population dynamics by affect...
Article
Satellite remote-sensing and wildlife tracking allow researchers to record rapidly increasing volumes of information on the spatial ecology of marine megafauna in the context of global change. This field of investigation is thereby entering the realm of big data science: Information technology allows the design of completely new frameworks for acqu...
Article
Global warming affects the Arctic more than any other region. Mass media constantly relay apocalyptic visions of climate change threatening Arctic wildlife, especially emblematic megafauna such as polar bears, whales, and seabirds. Yet, we are just beginning to understand such ecological impacts on marine megafauna at the scale of the Arctic. This...
Article
Climate change is transforming bioenergetic landscapes, challenging behavioral and physiological coping mechanisms. A critical question involves whether animals can adjust behavioral patterns and energy expenditure to stabilize fitness given reconfiguration of resource bases, or whether limits to plasticity ultimately compromise energy balance. In...
Article
Full-text available
Senescence is the irreversible decline in physiological functioning and survival with age. While this phenomenon has been studied in a range of different taxa, including seabirds, it has seldom been assessed for both sexes of monomorphic species, and in conservation contexts. Here, we studied the effect of age and sex on the foraging trip character...
Poster
Full-text available
Poster réalisé dans le cadre du Colloque des Doctorants de 2ème année organisé par l'école doctorale Euclide de La Rochelle Université. Présentation en français de résultats obtenus pour une étude sur "La composition en isotope stable du Hg dans les différents compartiments d'oeufs d'oiseaux marins : Le cas de trois espèces de l'Est du Groenland".
Article
The ability to efficiently measure the health and nutritional status of wild populations in situ is a valuable tool, as many methods of evaluating animal physiology do not occur in real-time limiting the possibilities for direct intervention. This study investigates the use of blood plasma metabolite concentrations, measured via point-of-care devic...
Article
Full-text available
Plastic pollution is distributed patchily around the world’s oceans. Likewise, marine organisms that are vulnerable to plastic ingestion or entanglement have uneven distributions. Understanding where wildlife encounters plastic is crucial for targeting research and mitigation. Oceanic seabirds, particularly petrels, frequently ingest plastic, are h...
Article
Organisms face energetic challenges of climate change in combination with suites of natural and anthropogenic stressors. In particular, chemical contaminant exposure has neurotoxic, endocrine-disrupting, and behavioral effects which may additively or interactively combine with challenges associated with climate change. We used a literature review a...
Preprint
Full-text available
Seabird face new risks through collisions with offshore wind turbines. Wind energy projects are emerging in the Mediterranean Sea, and unbiased knowledge on seabird flight altitudes are scarce in this area. Indeed, previous flight height observations were carried out from boats during daytime, and only in good weather conditions. We measured flight...
Preprint
Full-text available
High pathogenicity avian influenza virus (HPAIV) caused the worst seabird mass-mortalities on record in Europe across 2021-2022. The northern gannet (Morus bassanus) was one of the most affected species, with tens of thousands of casualties in the northeast Atlantic between April-September 2022. Disease outbreaks can drastically modify the movement...
Preprint
Full-text available
During 2021-22 High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI) killed thousands of wild birds across Europe and North America, suggesting a change in infection dynamics and a shift to new hosts, including seabirds. Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) appeared especially severely impacted, but limited understanding of how the virus spread across the metapop...
Preprint
Full-text available
Accelerometery is revolutionising the field of behavioural ecology through its capacity to detect the fine-scale movements of animals resulting from their behaviour. Because it is often difficult to infer the behaviour of wildlife on a continuous basis, particularly for cryptic species, accelerometers potentially provide powerful tools for remote m...
Article
Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events that negatively impact wildlife, from individuals to whole ecosystems1. In polar environments, such events include heat waves2, anomalous sea ice concentrations3 and storms4. Polar seabirds are adapted to withstand harsh conditions, and although extreme weather events af...
Article
Full-text available
Compared to other animal movements, prospecting by adult individuals for a future breeding site is commonly overlooked. Prospecting influences the decision of where to breed and has consequences on fitness and lifetime reproductive success. By analysing movements of 31 satellite-and GPS-tracked gull and tern populations belonging to 14 species in E...
Article
Storms can cause widespread seabird stranding and wrecking,1,2,3,4,5 yet little is known about the maximum wind speeds that birds are able to tolerate or the conditions they avoid. We analyzed >300,000 h of tracking data from 18 seabird species, including flapping and soaring fliers, to assess how flight morphology affects wind selectivity, both at...
Article
Combined effects of multiple, climate change-associated stressors are of mounting concern, especially in Arctic ecosystems. Elevated mercury (Hg) exposure in Arctic animals could affect behavioral responses to changes in foraging landscapes caused by climate change, generating interactive effects on behavior and population resilience. We investigat...
Article
Background Plants have adapted to survive seasonal life-threatening frost and drought. However, the timing and frequency of such events are impacted by climate change, jeopardising plant survival. Understanding better the strategies of survival to dehydration stress is therefore timely and can be enhanced by the cross-fertilization of research betw...
Article
Many animals migrate after reproduction to respond to seasonal environmental changes. Environmental conditions experienced on non-breeding sites can have carryover effects on fitness. Exposure to harmful chemicals can vary widely between breeding and non-breeding grounds, but its carryover effects are poorly studied. Mercury (Hg) contamination is a...
Article
Full-text available
Aim Over the last decades, the study of movement through tracking data has grown exceeding the expectations of movement ecologists. This has posed new challenges, specifically when using individual tracking data to infer higher‐level distributions (e.g. population and species). Sources of variability such as individual site fidelity (ISF), environm...
Preprint
Full-text available
Despite overall stability, plasticity in endothermic body temperature (T b ) occurs, which may facilitate maintenance of crucial activities in the face of climate change-related environmental variations. However, this plasticity may be limited by physiological or energetic constraints, which are potentially exacerbated by other environmental stress...
Article
Full-text available
Nous présentons un cadre de réflexion général se basant sur la démographie des populations d’Oiseaux marins afin d’identifier des leviers de gestion pertinents pour leur conservation. Après avoir rappelé l’influence des traits d’histoire de vie sur la démographie, nous avons synthétisé les paramètres démographiques connus pour 27 des 28 espèces d’O...
Article
Full-text available
Since the last Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) effort to review biological effects of mercury (Hg) on Arctic biota in 2011 and 2018, there has been a considerable number of new Arctic bird studies. This review article provides contemporary Hg exposure and potential health risk for 36 Arctic seabird and shorebird species, represent...
Article
Accelerometry has been widely used to estimate energy expenditure in a broad array of terrestrial and aquatic species. However, a recent reappraisal of the method showed that relationships between dynamic body acceleration (DBA) and energy expenditure weaken as the proportion of non-mechanical costs increase. Aquatic air breathing species often exe...
Article
Temporal trend analysis of (total) mercury (THg) concentrations in Arctic biota were assessed as part of the 2021 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) Mercury Assessment. A mixed model including an evaluation of non-linear trends was applied to 110 time series of THg concentrations from Arctic and Subarctic biota. Temporal trends were...
Preprint
Full-text available
Flying seabirds are adapted for windy environments 1,2 . Despite this, storms can cause widespread strandings and wrecks, demonstrating that these seabirds are not always able to avoid or compensate for extreme conditions 3,4,5,6,7 . The maximum wind speeds that birds can operate in should vary with morphology and flight style ⁸ , but this has been...
Article
Full-text available
Studies performed in humans and farm animals indicate that infrared thermography can be used to estimate the body temperature of homeotherms. However, this method has seldom been validated for wild animals in their natural environment. To fill this major gap, we shot facial infrared thermograms of red-footed boobies (Sula sula) in situ, while remot...
Article
Full-text available
Fear effects of predators on prey distributions are seldom considered in marine environments , especially over large spatial scales and in conservation contexts. To fill these major gaps, we tested the Seascape of Fear Hypothesis in the Benguela marine ecosystem off South Africa. Using electronic tracking data, we showed that Cape gannets and their...
Presentation
Full-text available
In colonial seabirds, ecological divergence may occur in the absence of physical barriers, driven by the isolation of populations due to distance, or the adaptation to local environment. In migratory seabirds, the geographic segregation among breeding populations can persist year round (i.e., strong migratory connectivity) when populations breeding...
Article
Full-text available
The conservation of migratory marine species, including pelagic seabirds, is challenging because their movements span vast distances frequently beyond national jurisdictions. Here, we aim to identify important aggregations of seabirds in the North Atlantic to inform ongoing regional conservation efforts. Using tracking, phenology, and population da...
Article
Full-text available
Electronic tracking technologies revolutionized wildlife ecology, notably for studying the movements of elusive species such as seabirds. Those advances are key to seabird conservation, for example in guiding the design of marine protected areas for this highly threatened group. Tracking data are also boosting scientific understanding of marine eco...
Article
Full-text available
Our societies will change following the COVID-19 crisis, as well as ocean management. Here we present 10 action points in a marine context, to re-energize our economies and avert the biodiversity and climate change crises of which the present COVID-19 crisis represents a portend: (1) promote carbon neutral economies to mitigate global warming; (2)...
Article
Full-text available
MONDRETI, R., DAVIDAR, P., RYAN, P.G., THIEBOT, J.B. & GREMILLET, D. 2020. Seabird and cetacean occurrence in the Bay of Bengal associated with marine productivity and commercial fishing effort. Marine Ornithology 48: 91–101. At-sea observations of seabirds and cetaceans provide essential baseline information about their biogeography and behaviour...
Article
Full-text available
https://arctox.cnrs.fr/en/home/ Mercury (Hg) is a natural trace element found in high concentrations in top predators, including Arctic seabirds. Most current knowledge about Hg concentrations in Arctic seabirds relates to exposure during the summer breeding period when researchers can easily access seabirds at colonies. However, the few studies f...
Article
Full-text available
We explored the implications of reaching the Paris Agreement Objective of limiting global warming to <2°C for the future winter distribution of the North Atlantic seabird community. We predicted and quantified current and future winter habitats of five North Atlantic Ocean seabird species (Alle alle, Fratercula arctica, Uria aalge, Uria lomvia and...
Article
Full-text available
Seabirds are one of the most threatened of all bird groups, with a marked community-wide decline across the last decades. Yet, some seabird species are more resilient than others, and it is essential to study under which conditions even these highly resilient organisms are affected by global changes. Here, we report such a case in northern gannets...
Article
Full-text available
Sharing the same wintering grounds by avian populations breeding in various areas may synchronize fluctuations in vital rates, which could increase the risk of extinction. Here, by combining multi-colony tracking with long-term capture-recapture data, we studied the winter distribution and annual survival of the most numerous Arctic seabird, the li...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
Aim In migratory species, individuals often use fixed and individual‐specific migration strategies, which we term individual migration strategy fidelity (IMSF). Our goal was to test if guillemots have flexible or fixed individual migration strategies (i.e. IMSF), if this behaviour is consistent across large parts of the genus’ range and if they wer...
Article
Despite the limited direct anthropogenic mercury (Hg) inputs in the circumpolar Arctic, elevated concentrations of methylmercury (MeHg) are accumulated in Arctic marine biota. However, the MeHg production and bioaccumulation pathways in these ecosystems have not been completely unraveled. We measured Hg concentrations and stable isotope ratios of H...
Article
Social information percolates through a variety of channels to influence animal decision making, with a notable effect on reproductive and feeding success. Colonial central place foragers can reduce time to locate ephemeral food patches and/or increase foraging rate by following their informed peers, parasitizing direction of returning successful f...
Preprint
Full-text available
A group of ocean experts brainstormed about the most pressing actions to be taken in favour of ocean conservation in the context of SARS-CoV2
Article
Full-text available
Our paper reports findings on at-sea distributions of both seabirds and cetaceans in the Bay of Bengal. Our study is the first systematic attempt in creating baseline information for this data-poor region. We carried out 39 days of vessel-based observations from 2012 to 2014 over a total linear distance of 4722.3 km. We observed 2697 seabirds of 17...
Preprint
Full-text available
France's double game with environmental issues
Article
Full-text available
To use seabirds as ecological sentinels of marine ecosystems under the incidence of global changes, it is essential to understand linkages between their spatial ecology and environmental conditions. Such information is still lacking for some key areas, including in Europe. We studied the spatial ecology of European shags (Phalacrocorax aristotelis)...
Article
Full-text available
The identification of geographic areas where the densities of animals are highest across their annual cycles is a crucial step in conservation planning. In marine environments, however, it can be particularly difficult to map the distribution of species, and the methods used are usually biased towards adults, neglecting the distribution of other li...
Article
Full-text available
Identifying drivers of population trends in migratory species is difficult, as they can face many stressors while moving through different areas and environments during the annual cycle. To understand the potential of migrants to adjust to perturbations, it is critical to study the connection of different areas used by different populations during...
Cover Page
Full-text available
Climate change could overturn bird migration: Transarctic flights and high-latitude residency in a sea ice free Arctic
Technical Report
Full-text available
This report describes the results from fieldwork carried out on breeding seabirds in Northeast Greenland as part of the Northeast Greenland Environmental Study Program. Results of GPS-tracking of Sabine’s gulls and ivory gulls are described, as well as surveys of thick-billed murre colonies and a variety of studies on little auks.
Article
Full-text available
Climate models predict that by 2050 the Arctic Ocean will be sea ice free each summer. Removing this barrier between the Atlantic and the Pacific will modify a wide range of ecological processes, including bird migration. Using published information, we identified 29 arctic-breeding seabird species, which currently migrate in the North Atlantic and...
Article
Full-text available
A global analysis recently showed that seabird breeding phenology (as the timing of egg-laying and hatching) does not, on average, respond to temperature changes or advance with time (Keogan et al. 2018 Nat. Clim. Change 8, 313–318). This group, the most threatened of all birds, is therefore prone to spatio-temporal mismatches with their food resou...
Article
Full-text available
Patterns of behavioural variation and migratory connectivity are important characteristics of populations, particularly at the edges of species distributions, where processes involved in influencing evolutionary trajectories, such as divergence, mutual persistence, and natural hybridization, can occur. Here, we focused on two closely related seabir...
Article
Full-text available
Dispersal is a key mechanism enabling species to adjust their geographic range to rapid global change. However, dispersal is costly and environmental modifications are likely to modify the cost–benefit balance of individual dispersal decisions, for example, by decreasing functional connectivity. Dispersal costs occur during departure, transience an...
Article
Full-text available
Wildlife that exploit human-made habitats hosts and spreads bacterial pathogens. This shapes the epidemiology of infectious diseases and facilitates pathogen spill-over between wildlife and humans. This is a global problem, yet little is known about the dissemination potential of pathogen-infected animals. By combining molecular pathogen diagnosis...
Article
Fisheries modify ecosystem balance by harvesting through marine food webs and producing large amounts of discards subsidizing scavengers. Among them, seabirds are the most conspicuous and have been benefiting from anthropogenic food sources generated by fisheries. However, this modified feeding behaviour also exposes them to threats, such as accide...
Article
Full-text available
Migration is a fundamental behavioral process prevalent among a wide variety of animal taxa. As individuals are increasingly shown to present consistent responses to environmental cues for breeding or foraging, it may be expected that approaches to migration would present similar among-individual consistencies. Seabirds frequently show consistent i...
Article
Full-text available
Age variation in reproductive performance is well-documented but the mechanisms underlying this variation remain unclear. Foraging efficiency is likely to be a key source of demographic variation as it determines the amount of energy that can be invested in fitness-related activities. Evidence of age-related changes in the foraging efficiency of ad...
Article
Full-text available
Fisheries compete with seabirds for vanishing marine resources, but also produce fishery waste consumed by seabirds. Marine birds may therefore avoid or seek fishing vessels, and have evolved complex, plastic behavioural responses to vessel presence. Understanding these responses is essential to the conservation of a globally declining seabird comm...