Many predictive models of spatial and temporal distribution (e.g. in response to climate change or species introductions) assume that species have one environmental niche that applies to all individuals. However, there is growing evidence that individuals can have environmental preferences that are narrower than the species niche. Such individual specialization has mainly been studied in terms of dietary niches, but a recent increase in the availability of individual movement data opens the possibility of extending these analyses to specialisation in environmental preferences. Yet, no study to date on individual specialisation has considered the environmental niche in its multidimensionality. Here we propose a new method for quantifying individual specialisation in multiple dimensions simultaneously. We compare the hypervolumes in n-dimensional environmental niche space of each individual against that of the population, testing for significant differences against a null model. The same method can be applied to a 2-dimensional geographic space to test for site fidelity. We applied this method to test for individual environmental specialisation (across three dimensions: sea surface temperature, eddy kinetic energy, depth) and for site fidelity among satellite-tracked black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris) and grey-headed albatrosses (Thalassarche chrysostoma), during chick-rearing at South Georgia. We found evidence for site fidelity in both species and of environmental specialisation among individual grey-headed but not black-browed albatrosses. Specialisation can affect the resilience of populations affected by natural and anthropogenic changes in the environment, and hence has implications for population dynamics and conservation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 November 2018.
All research outputs
#9,459,664
of 32,349,805 outputs
Outputs from Marine Biology
#1,708
of 4,967 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#121,942
of 365,661 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Marine Biology
#11
of 44 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,349,805 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,967 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.5. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 44 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
