Zoos and aquariums across the country care for thousands of animals that act as powerful ambassadors for their species. At Alaska SeaLife Center, our resident animals do even more: voluntarily contributing to studies that protect wild populations in ways only animals in human care can.
For many Alaskan marine species, the amount of information we can gather is limited. Observing or collecting samples from seabirds that nest thousands of feet above the water on sheer cliffs and can dive hundreds of feet below the water can be a challenge for us mere humans. Our climbing gear and dive gear just don’t quite measure up!
That’s where the puffins in our care come in. They give us a safe, accessible way to explore questions we have a hard time answering in the wild. By testing new methods in human care that would be extremely challenging in the wild, we can develop tools that scientists can use more feasibly in the field to better understand and protect puffin populations across Alaska and beyond.
Join us for a visual journey as we show you how our team collected data for one of these voluntary research projects with our resident puffins!
The Big Question: What are Puffins Eating in Resurrection Bay?
It seems like a simple question to answer, but diet is one of the hardest things to study in wild seabirds. These birds are fast-moving (above and below the water), and they live in places that are anything but easy to access. Tracking what they eat throughout the day in Alaska’s vast waters is nearly impossible.
Traditional methods of learning about wild seabird diets often require capturing a bird and gavaging it to analyze its stomach contents. If the bird bill stacks like puffins do, researchers take photos of the prey items themselves before the puffins go into their burrows. This can be very challenging to do!
What if researchers could gather the same information by only collecting scat from the cliff edges?
That’s why our team of researchers at Alaska SeaLife Center partnered with our resident puffins to fill in some gaps and validate information. This process used environmental DNA (eDNA) from the puffin poop to show what the birds had eaten.
For one week, our puffins were fed a carefully controlled diet so we knew exactly what and how much they ate. This allowed us to track how food items are digested, when their genetic signals first appear in the poop, and how long those signals remain after the puffins stop eating that item.
Resident tufted and horned puffins at the ASLC eat herring while researchers closely monitor for consumption.
This will help us relate prey signals eaten by wild puffins to determine what and when prey is available over time.
The knowledge gained at ASLC is just the beginning of this process. Once tested and refined here in a controlled setting, these methods can be applied to learn about the diets of wild populations by using poop samples provided by the birds.
Meet the Puffins
For one week, 13 tufted puffins and 15 horned puffins lived their lives as normal at ASLC. They ate, socialized, pooped… all in all, a pretty normal day for a resident puffin. But on these days, they had extra eyes watching their every step (and poop!) and recording many intricate details throughout their day.
Resident tufted and horned puffins at the ASLC are offered krill while researchers closely monitor for consumption.
First, meal time! Each day had its own designated food items, such as capelin, sandeels, herring, or krill. Researchers recorded what food item was offered and how much was eaten by each and every puffin.
Our researchers spent the week with eyes trained like a hawk. It takes a very unique skill (and some serious dedication) to track the location and the puffin responsible for each poop that hits the ground.
An ASLC researcher documents locations on a map for every puffin poop that hits the ground.
With guidance from our phenomenal poop map loggers, the team used sterile forceps (tweezers) and scoops to carefully collect each poop. Each sample was then labeled with date, species, individual ID (if from an individual bird), and feed time, then preserved in Longmire’s solution to prevent DNA degredation over time.
Of course, every puffin has a unique personality, and some became very curious about the people paying abnormally close attention to their poop.
The process continued three times a day for seven days, requiring thorough cleaning and sanitization of all surfaces and tools between each poop collection.
By the end of the week, researchers had built a “library” of puffin eDNA. Each vial holds genetic clues about the fish and invertebrates the puffins ate, waiting to be unlocked by DNA sequencing.
Every puffin in our care plays a role in shaping the future of conservation. By simply going about their daily routines, they’re helping scientists develop tools that will one day make it easier to study wild puffin diets with less disturbance.
It’s a reminder that even the smallest contributions, even the smallest bit of poo, can lead to big discoveries.
