Quantifying the links between the marine environment, prey occurrence, and predator distribution is the first step towards identifying areas of biological importance for marine spatial planning. Events such as marine heatwaves result in an anomalous change in the physical environment, which can lead to shifts in the structure, biomass, and distribution of lower trophic levels. As central-place foragers, seabirds are vulnerable to changes in their foraging grounds during the breeding season. We first quantified spatiotemporal variability in the occurrence and biomass of prey in response to an abrupt change in oceanography as a result of a marine heatwave event. Secondly, using multivariate techniques and machine learning, we investigated if differences in the foraging technique and prey of seabirds resulted in varying responses to changes in prey occurrence and the environment over a 2.5-yr period. We found that the main variables correlated with seabird distribution were also important in structuring the occurrence and biomass of prey; sea-surface temperature (SST), current speed, mixed-layer depth, and bathymetry. Both zooplankton biomass and the occurrence of fish schools exhibited negative relationships with temperature, and temperature was subsequently an important variable in determining seabird distribution. We were able to establish correlations between the distribution of prey and the spatiotemporal distribution of albatross, little penguins and common-diving petrels. We were unable to find a correlation between the distribution of prey and that of short-tailed shearwaters and fairy prions. For high-use coastal areas, the delineation of important foraging regions is essential to balance human use of an area with the needs of marine predators, particularly seabirds.

中文翻译：

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期间提高环境变化的预测觅食的海鸟分布

量化海洋环境，猎物出现时，与被捕食者分布之间的关系是对识别的生物重要性领域海洋空间规划的第一步。事件，如海洋热浪导致在物理环境中的异常变化，这会导致在结构中，生物质和低营养级的分布的变化。作为中央地方觅食，海鸟是脆弱的繁殖季节在他们的觅食场地的变化。我们首先量化了猎物的发生和生物量的时空变异性，以响应海洋热浪事件引起的海洋学突然变化。其次，使用多变量技术和机器学习，我们调查，如果在觅食技术和海鸟的猎物的差异导致了不同的反应，在猎物出现和变化在2.5年期的环境。我们发现，与海鸟分布相关的主要变量也分别在结构发生和猎物的生物质重要; 海平面温度（SST），当前速度，混合层的深度，和水深。既浮游动物生物量和鱼群的发生表现出与温度负相关关系，并且温度为随后在确定海鸟分布的重要变量。我们能够建立猎物分布与信天翁、小企鹅和普通潜水海燕的时空分布之间的相关性。我们无法找到猎物的分布和短尾鹱和童话朊病毒之间的相关性。对于高利用沿海地区重要的觅食区域的划定是人体不可缺少的使用面积来平衡与海洋食肉动物的需求，特别是海鸟。