David Pinaud

French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé UMR7372

Understanding environmental factors underlying animal foraging distribution is of major importance in defining priority conservation actions. During their wintering stage, most shorebirds depend on intertidal areas, as foraging grounds, and on supratidal areas, as high tide roosts. The accessibility of foraging areas and food resources is thus limi...

After spectacular population crashes in the 1960-70s, Peregrine Falcons Falco peregrinus recovered worldwide, and in the 2000s many study populations were back to normal. However, post-recovery trends have not been documented. We combined three long-term population studies covering the entire Jura mountains (16,304 km²) to examine spatio-temporal v...

Fishers aim to optimise cost-benefit ratios of their behaviour when exploiting resources. Avoidance of interactions with marine predators (i.e. their feeding on catches in fishing gear, known as depredation), has recently become an important component of their decisions. How fishers minimise these interactions whilst maximising fishing success is p...

Species that are distributed over wide geographical ranges are likely to encounter a greater diversity of environmental conditions than do narrowly distributed taxa, and thus we expect a correlation between size of geographical range and breadth of physiological tolerances to abiotic challenges. That correlation could arise either because higher ph...

Habitat selection is an important process in birds that influences individual survival and fitness, and ultimately shapes population dynamics. As a consequence, strong selective pressures apply to favor strategies allowing individuals to choose high-quality habitat for foraging while reducing predation risk and competition. In long-distance migrato...

Most shorebirds depend on coastal habitats for much of their life cycle. The quality and diversity of feeding areas during the wintering period directly condition their winter survival, subsequent migration, and breeding success. During their wintering in France, shorebirds use intertidal areas for feeding, both in daylight and at night, depending...

Dietary plasticity is an important issue for conservation biology as it may be essential for species to cope with environmental changes. However, this process still remains scarcely addressed in the literature, potentially because diet studies have long been constrained by methodological limits. The advent of molecular approaches now makes it possi...

The author would like to correct the Fig. 4 of the published article.

Dietary plasticity is an important issue for conservation biology as it may be essential for species to cope with environmental changes. However, this process still remains scarcely addressed in the literature, potentially because diet studies have long been constrained by methodological limits. The advent of molecular approaches now makes it possi...

Available from https://www.cebc.cnrs.fr/wp-content/uploads/publipdf/2020/PMB167_2020.pdf /// ABSTRACT: Accurately locating the foraging areas of diving marine predators is central to understanding their ecology and implementing conservation and management regulations. This study compares horizontal and vertical approaches of identifying seal foragi...

Plain Language Summary Polar ecosystems are threatened by future loss of sea ice. The availability of satellite sea ice products has facilitated a better assessment of the impact of sea ice on polar species. Yet most studies have focused on coarse spatial scale sea ice products hampering an understanding of the mechanisms by which sea ice affects s...

Among seabirds, alcids are particularly sensitive to bycatch in fisheries and oil pollution, yet their distribution at sea remains scarcely known in most of their breeding areas. GPS telemetry data of fifteen individuals of alcids (5 Razorbills 6 Common Murres and 4 Puffins) were analyzed to determine their distribution during the breeding period o...

There is growing interest in the consistency of individual differences in animal behavior as it relates to life history traits and fitness. Despite the relatively large number of studies investigating repeatable behaviors, studies have only recently investigated repeatability in foraging or migratory behaviors, and this has seldom been explored bet...

We summarize key results of the first 53 years of one of the longest-running avian population studies in the world, on the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus), in the French Jura mountains (12,714 km ² ), launched in 1964. A total of 449 cliff sites in 338 potential Peregrine territories were surveyed: 287 (85%) of these territories were occupied b...

1. La fragmentation des habitats et l’isolation résultant des activités humaines ont été reconnues comme une grande menace pour les populations. Évaluer la connectivité paysagère pour identifier et protéger les corridors devient alors un défi crucial en écologie appliquée et en conservation. 2. La modélisation par les Chemins de Moindre Coût (LCP)...

Species assemblages can result from deterministic processes, such as niche differentiation and interspecific interactions, and from stochastic processes, such as random colonisation and extinction events. Although changes in animal communities following disturbances have been widely examined, few studies have investigated the mechanisms structuring...

1.Habitat fragmentation and isolation as a result of human activities have been recognized as great threats to population viability. Evaluating landscape connectivity in order to identify and protect linkages has therefore become a key challenge in applied ecology and conservation. 2.One useful approach to evaluate connectivity is Least‐Cost Path (...

Severe population declines of amphibians have been shown to be attributed to climate change. Nevertheless, the various mechanisms through which climate can influence population dynamics of amphibians remain to be assessed, notably to disentangle the relative synergetic or antagonistic influences of temperature and precipitations on specific life hi...

Individuals do not have complete information about the environment and therefore they face a trade‐off between gathering information (exploration) and gathering resources (exploitation). Studies have shown individual differences in components of this trade‐off but how stable these strategies are in a population and the intrinsic drivers of these di...

Studies of habitat selection by higher trophic level species are necessary for using top predator species as indicators of ecosystem functioning. However, contrary to terrestrial ecosystems, few habitat selection studies have been conducted at a fine scale for coastal marine top predator species, and fewer have coupled diet data with habitat select...

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are considered one of the main tools in both fisheries and conservation management to protect threatened species and their habitats around the globe. However, MPAs are underrepresented in marine environments compared to terrestrial environments. Within this context, we studied the Atlantic non-breeding distribution of...

Satellite telemetry of two European Turtle Doves Streptopelia turtur confirmed the broad patterns suggested by earlier work using geologgers but also revealed that they migrated by night and used four distinct stopover and two wintering sites. Winter habitat used by one bird covered less than 100 km2 per site, much smaller than previously assumed.

Determining the year-round distribution and behaviour of birds is necessary for a betterunderstanding of their ecology and foraging strategies. Petrels form an important componentof the high-latitude seabird assemblages in terms of species and individuals. The distributionand foraging ecology of three sympatric fulmarine petrels (Southern FulmarFul...

Article dans "Faune Sauvage" qui est une une revue de vulgarisation de l'ONCFS. Suite à la publication de l'article Petits carnivores dans Plos One

Tracking individual animals using satellite telemetry has improved our understanding of animal movements considerably. Nonetheless, thorough statistical treatment of Argos datasets is often jeopardized by their coarse temporal resolution. State-space modelling can circumvent some of the inherent limitations of Argos datasets, such as the limited te...

Spatially explicit conservation measures are increasingly taking the central stage of conservation strategies, and networks of marine protected areas (hereafter MPAs) are being used to manage fisheries and to protect threatened species and marine habitats around the globe. There is an increasing interest to extend the application of MPAs to encompa...

In response to seasonality and spatial segregation of resources, sea turtles undertake long journeys between their nesting sites and foraging grounds. While satellite tracking has made it possible to outline their migration routes, we still have little knowledge of how they select their foraging grounds and adapt their migration to dynamic environm...

In response to seasonality and spatial segregation of resources, sea turtles undertake long journeys between their nesting sites and foraging grounds. While satellite tracking has made it possible to outline their migration routes, we still have little knowledge of how they select their foraging grounds and adapt their migration to dynamic environm...

In response to resource seasonality, sea turtles undertake long journeys between their nesting sites and foraging grounds. While satellite tracking has made it possible to outline their migration routes, we still have little knowledge of how they select their foraging grounds and adapt their migration to dynamic environmental conditions. Using gree...

In response to seasonality and spatial segregation of resources, sea turtles undertake long journeys between their nesting sites and foraging grounds. While satellite tracking has made it possible to outline their migration routes, we still have little knowledge of how they select their foraging grounds and adapt their migration to dynamic environm...

We estimated the spatial distribution of 6 Mustelidae species in France using the data collected by the French national hunting and wildlife agency under the "small carnivorous species logbooks" program. The 1500 national wildlife protection officers working for this agency spend 80% of their working time traveling in the spatial area in which they...

Several tetrapod lineages that have evolved to exploit marine environments (e.g. seals, seabirds, sea kraits) continue to rely upon land for reproduction and, thus, form dense colonies on suitable islands. In birds and mammals (endotherms), the offspring cannot survive without their parents. Terrestrial colonies contain all age classes. In reptiles...

Mobility and irruptive movements have been proposed as mechanisms that could allow some diet specialists to inhabit and breed in environments with highly unpredictable resources, like the arctic tundra. The snowy owl, one of the main avian predators of the tundra, is known to specialize on lemmings during the breeding season. These small mammals ar...

Processes and variables measured in ecology are almost always spatially autocorrelated, potentially leading to the choice of overly complex models when performing variable selection. One way to solve this problem is to account for residual spatial autocorrelation (RSA) for each subset of variables considered and then use a classical model selection...

We studied the year-round distribution and at-sea activity patterns of the sibling species, northern giant petrel Macronectes halli and southern giant petrel M. giganteus. Loggers combining light-based geolocators and immersion sensors were used to provide year-long data on large-scale distribution and activity of both species from the Crozet Islan...

Late breeding usually occurs during years of poor environmental conditions, but the proximate mechanisms underlying this phenological pattern have been poorly documented. Here, we combined the deployment of GPS devices (from 2008 to 2010) and the monitoring of breeding parameters and baseline corticosterone levels (from 2007 to 2011) during the pre...

Post-breeding migration in land-based marine animals is thought to offset seasonal deterioration in foraging or other important environmental conditions at the breeding site. However the inter-breeding distribution of such animals may reflect not only their optimal habitat, but more subtle influences on an individual's migration path, including suc...

Summary of the MADIFA model for wintering Eudyptes filholi from Crozet and Kerguelen. Values indicate % of variance explained by the three first principal components of the PCAs and scores of the variables on those components. Abbreviations used for the variables: BATHY: bathymetry, BATHYG: gradient of bathymetry, SST: sea-surface temperature, SSTG...

Summary of the MADIFA model for wintering Eudyptes chrysolophus from Crozet and Kerguelen Islands. Values indicate % of variance explained by the three first principal components of the PCAs and scores of the variables on those components. Abbreviations used for the variables: BATHY: bathymetry, BATHYG: gradient of bathymetry, SST: sea-surface temp...

Illustration of the chronological scenario proposed from the paleoenvironments to explain the Eudyptes penguins’ contrasted inter-breeding migration patterns. Cool period during early Pleistocene (A, from 1.9–1.3 to 0.9–0.42 Ma ago), with penguins at Crozet and Kerguelen Islands and putative migration routes (yellow arrows); then (B) warming during...

Migration schedule (peak departure/return dates from the colony) and tagging period of the three species surveyed (the macaroni Eudyptes chrysolophus, the eastern E. filholi and the northern E. moseleyi rockhopper penguins) on the four localities (Marion, Crozet, Kerguelen and Amsterdam Islands). References: *. this study, 8. Thiebot JB, Cherel Y,...

Planning actions for species conservation involves working at both an ecologically meaningful spatial scale and a scale suitable for implementing management or conservation plans. Animal populations and conservation policies often operate across wide areas. Large-extent spatial datasets are thus often used, but their analyses rarely deal with probl...

Inter- and intraspecific competition can lead to resource partitioning in sympatric species, processes likely affected by environmental productivity and population size. We investigated the foraging behaviour and diet of masked (Sula dactylatra) and red-footed (S. sula) boobies at Tromelin Island, western Indian Ocean, to examine the role of resour...

Temperature influences ectotherm fitness by affecting physiological performance. Terrestrial reptiles behaviourally regulate their body temperature by selecting particular microhabitats or activity periods. In temperate climates, thermal constraints make precise thermoregulation costly. Theoretical models of thermoregulation predict that species in...

For land-breeding marine organisms such as seabirds, knowledge about their habitat use has mainly been gained through studies of breeding individuals that are constrained to return frequently to their breeding grounds. In this study we set out to measure whether: a) habitat selection in the non-breeding period predicts habitat selection in the bree...

Gadfly petrels are strictly oceanic seabirds that range very far from their breeding grounds. Foraging movements outside the breeding season are poorly described. We used global location sensing (GLS) to describe the migration pathways and wintering habitats of Barau's petrels Pterodroma baraui, an endemic, endangered seabird of Reunion Island (wes...

1. Currently pelagic ecosystems are changing significantly due to multiple threats. An important management policy is to establish marine protected areas, until now overlooked due to the difficulty of declaring ‘high seas’ protected areas, obtaining long-term distribution data on indicator species and the dynamic nature of these ecosystems. 2. With...

The development of biologging techniques has been instrumental in studying the behaviour of wild animals and interpreting it with respect to the bio-physical features of their habitat. Light-based geolocation currently appears to be the only technique suitable for the study of farranging small species, particularly marine species, over long periods...

Colour variation in time and space among animals may affect social relationships such as pairing and dominance interactions. For instance, some birds are naturally sensitive to leg colour, with some colours being more visible or attractive than others. The colour of the leg-rings used to mark birds may thus be related to behavioural and reproductiv...

Breeding sooty shearwaters Puffinus griseus cycle between long (11 to 14 d) and short (1 to 2 d) foraging bouts at sea, but no information exists on bird behavior during these trips. We tested the hypothesis that shearwaters use these long trips to travel to distant Antarctic waters compared to remaining in local waters. Patterns of habitat use of...

The shores of coral reef islands are major sites for biodiversity, but unfortunately they are also subject to strong anthropogenic disturbances. Indeed vast arrays of organisms live exclusively in these very narrow and well structured zones, many others depend on the rich and diverse micro-habitats for essential part of their life cycle (to reprodu...

Reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) may be related to different roles in breeding investment and/or foraging, but little information is available on foraging ecology. We studied the foraging behaviour and parental investment by male and female masked boobies, a species with RSD, by combining studies of foraging ecology using miniaturised activity and...

Although penguins are key marine predators from the Southern Ocean, their migratory behaviour during the inter-nesting period remains widely unknown. Here, we report for the first time, to our knowledge, the winter foraging movements and feeding habits of a penguin species by using geolocation sensors fitted on penguins with a new attachment method...

A heterogeneous environment includes several levels of resource aggregation. Individuals do not respond to this heterogeneity in the same way and their responses depend on the scale at which they perceive it, and they develop different foraging tactics accordingly. The development of methods to analyse animal movements has enabled the study of fora...

From an ecological point of view, it is important to assess the foraging success of animals, but currently few methods exist. Based on a new biologging approach, we developed a novel analytical framework using accelerometers in order to not only determine accurately time budgets, but also estimate changes in body mass along foraging trips of seabir...

1. Identifying the spatial scales at which top marine predators forage is important for understanding oceanic ecosystems. Several methods quantify how individuals concentrate their search effort along a given path. Among these, First-Passage Time (FPT) analysis is particularly useful to identify transitions in movement patterns (e.g. between search...

In a patchy environment, predators are expected to increase turning rate and start an area-restricted search (ARS) when prey have been encountered, but few empirical data exist for large predators. By using GPS loggers with devices measuring prey capture, we studied how a marine predator adjusts foraging movements at various scales in relation to p...