Marine Ripple: Researchers at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the University of Exeter have combined two innovative technologies to probe the mystery of how seabirds locate food hotspots across vast tracts of ocean. The way in which marine predators find prey in what to us seems a largely featureless landscape, often tens or hundreds of kilometres from a ‘home base’, has long puzzled biologists.

By bringing the two technologies together, the scientists have shown that the birds search out regions where ‘ocean fronts’ form most frequently, so making their foraging more efficient and less energetically costly.

The research team, led by PML and the University of Exeter, also included scientists from the Universities of Plymouth and Aberdeen. The study was published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, you can view the abstract here.