Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L01285:reg:3:p24
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L01285
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 3 (pt 24/26)
Character Range: 134789–137702

changes beyond historical variance, with effects on food dispersion and availability.

Climate change is causing major shifts in the distribution of species throughout the world (Albouy et al. 2014). Seabirds including albatrosses and petrels are susceptible to extreme climatic events (Chambers et al. 2011, 2014, Rodríguez et al. 2019). The effects of climate change on seabirds in Australian marine ecosystems include ocean warming and changes in marine currents that have the potential to affect foraging patterns due to changes in marine productivity (Thomson et al. 2015, Cleeland et al. 2019), increased frequency of storm events (Walsh & Ryan 2000, McInnes et al. 2012) and changes in wind patterns affecting the energetic cost of foraging flights (Jouventin & Weimerskirch 1990, Marshall 2003).
A major effect of climate on seabirds will be changes in prey distribution (Robinson et al. 2005), particularly during the breeding season. As the world's oceans warm, the marine environments will lose oxygen, which is likely to increase metabolic pressure on marine species (Deutsch et al. 2015), including the prey species of albatrosses and petrels. Thus, habitable zones will shrink and some species are likely leave the upper water column (0-400 m) to seek refuge lower in the water column where cool, oxygenated waters still occur. This effect is expected to be largest near the equator, but contraction of habitable zones is also expected in the mid-latitudes where many fisheries occur, particularly in the northern hemisphere. Shifts by certain species towards higher latitudes may offset the habitat loss at least partially, however this move is likely to cause increased competition for polar and subpolar species (Deutsch et al. 2015). The effect of vertical shifts in prey species in the water column in response to higher sea surface temperatures, and any consequential reduction in the availability of such prey to albatrosses and petrels is presently unknown.
How seabirds will respond to climate change and whether or not they are capable of adapting to new conditions remains largely unknown (Thompson et al. 2015), and is likely to species-specific. The effect of climate change of the marine foraging ranges of albatrosses and petrels in Australia's jurisdiction is largely unknown, and poorly studied (Cleeland et al. 2019). As well, potential climate adaption strategies are limited to intervention options that may be taken at breeding sites (for example, Alderman & Hobday 2017).

3.5           Summary of terrestrial and marine threats
Table 4 summarises the terrestrial and marine threats affecting the albatross and petrel species included in the recovery plan. The information in Table 4 is derived from the comprehensive species profile including risk matrices for each of the albatross and petrel species included in the recovery plan, which can be found at Appendix A.
Table