Joanie Van de Walle

Mating in Troubled Waters for the Wandering Albatross

About the Speaker

Joanie Van de Walle is a behavioral, evolutionary and population ecologist. She is a Postdoctoral Investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she studies the role of behavior in shaping individual performance and population dynamics and how those interact with climate change and fishery bycatch in albatrosses from the Southern Ocean. She attended Universite Laval, Canada as a master’s student then continued her studies on seal pup development as a biologist for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Joanie obtained a PhD from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada in 2020, where she studied behaviors between Swedish brown bear mothers and their cubs. With a combination of both theoretical and empirical approaches, the central themes of her research include parental care and reproductive strategies, to understand how those can be influenced by human activities such as climate change and exploitation.

Mating in the wandering albatross: a story of partnership and personality where humans play an unintentional role

Across the globe, most albatross populations are declining. Their reproductive strategy is quite phenomenal and unique, but it is also what makes them vulnerable to anthropogenic threats. Indeed, in the wandering albatross, it takes two to tango; after 2-3 years of elaborate display activity and courtship, one male and one female partner up to mate and raise a single chick. Under this strict monogamous strategy, the presence of both parents is crucial and necessary for breeding success as if one partner dies, the chick dies too. Both partners alternate foraging trips at sea to feed the chick and themselves, but foraging grounds for this 11-feet wide bird are immense and strewn with obstacles. Long-line fishing boats operate in large numbers in the Southern Ocean and represent an attractive food source for albatrosses, but birds can get caught on long line hooks and drown. Unintentionally, fishery bycatch is responsible for thousands of albatross mortalities annually, making albatross widows and threatening their chicks’ survival. Susceptibility to bycatch differs between males and females and is likely dependent on individual personality, with bolder individuals being more attracted to this rich, but risky, food source. In parallel, human-induced climate change has so far been beneficial to the wandering albatross as the stronger winds currently observed in the Southern Ocean allow breeding birds to acquire food to raise their chicks more efficiently, but further climate changes are expected that may reverse this trend. Our current work aims at understanding whether the wandering albatross can adapt to present and future threats, to secure their reproductive success and persistence in the long run.