The white-capped albatross: a new breeding record for the Diego Ramírez Islands, Chile
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Abstract
Albatrosses are renowned for their high philopatry, which has been proposed as a major barrier to their dispersal and hybridization with other albatross species. Except for shy-type albatross species from New Zealand, examples of colonization of new breeding sites and interbreeding with closely related species are rare. During the austral summer of 2022, while conducting land-based monitoring of resident Black-browed (Thalassarche melanophris) and Grey-headed (T. chrysostoma) albatross populations on the Diego Ramírez Islands, Chile (56 S), we documented the first (and southernmost) breeding record of a nesting pair of White-capped Albatross (T. steadi), a species endemic to the Auckland Islands, New Zealand (~ 7000 km away). The species identity was confirmed through molecular analysis. This discovery underscores the importance of Diego Ramírez and its surrounding waters as a hotspot for global albatross conservation.Link to publications or other datasets
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Polar biology 47 (2024), 771 - 777