Abstract: Qikirtajuaq is a long island facing the Inuit village of Akulivik on the northeastern coast of Hudson Bay (Canada) that is rich in archaeological sites. Kangiakallak-1 (JeGn-2), one of the main sites on this island, is a large multicomponent site that includes Dorset and Thule Inuit winter houses. This study documents the dynamics of palaeoenvironmental conditions in the successive occupations of the Kangiakallak-1 settlement based on plant macrofossils, pollen and non-pollen palynomorph analyses and archaeological research. The data indicate that Dorset inhabitants constructed their dwelling at about 772 cal. a BP. The site was reused by the Thule Inuit a few decades later, starting at about 671 cal. a BP. Thus, Kangiakallak-1 is one of the few sites, at least in Nunavik (northern Quebec, Canada), that were rapidly reoccupied by the Thule Inuit after the departure of the Dorset inhabitants, which indicates a possible overlap between the two cultures in the Akulivik region. The palaeoecological data show that both Dorset and Thule inhabitants left clear footprints at the local scale in the form of several nitrophilous species that became established in and near the houses and persisted over a long period. The deposition of domestic waste (including bone fragments, skin, burnt fat and charcoal fragments) inside the subterranean dwellings fertilized the soil and led to the growth of unique nitrophilous plants. These changes transformed the houses into exceptional floristic refuges.

Abstract: Most birds incubate their eggs, which requires time and energy at the expense of other activities. Birds generally have two incubation strategies: biparental where both mates cooperate in incubating eggs, and uniparental where a single parent incubates. In harsh and unpredictable environments, incubation is challenging due to high energetic demands and variable resource availability. We studied the relationships between the incubation behaviour of sandpipers (genus Calidris) and two environmental variables: temperature and a proxy of primary productivity (i.e. NDVI). We investigated how these relationships vary between incubation strategies and across species among strategies. We also studied how the relationship between current temperature and incubation behaviour varies with previous day's temperature. We monitored the incubation behaviour of nine sandpiper species using thermologgers at 15 arctic sites between 2016 and 2019. We also used thermologgers to record the ground surface temperature at conspecific nest sites and extracted NDVI values from a remote sensing product. We found no relationship between either environmental variables and biparental incubation behaviour. Conversely, as ground-surface temperature increased, uniparental species decreased total duration of recesses (TDR) and mean duration of recesses (MDR), but increased number of recesses (NR). Moreover, small species showed stronger relationships with ground-surface temperature than large species. When all uniparental species were combined, an increase in NDVI was correlated with higher mean duration, total duration and number of recesses, but relationships varied widely across species. Finally, some uniparental species showed a lag effect with a higher nest attentiveness after a warm day while more recesses occurred after a cold day than was predicted based on current temperatures. We demonstrate the complex interplay between shorebird incubation strategies, incubation behaviour, and environmental conditions. Understanding how species respond to changes in their environment during incubation helps predict their future reproductive success.

Abstract: In December 2019, the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) Division V Working Group (V-MOD) adopted the thirteenth generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF). This IGRF updates the previous generation with a definitive main field model for epoch 2015.0, a main field model for epoch 2020.0, and a predictive linear secular variation for 2020.0 to 2025.0. This letter provides the equations defining the IGRF, the spherical harmonic coefficients for this thirteenth generation model, maps of magnetic declination, inclination and total field intensity for the epoch 2020.0, and maps of their predicted rate of change for the 2020.0 to 2025.0 time period.

Abstract: Managing marine systems is challenging, as many marine species are highly mobile. Albatross exemplify this paradigm, overlapping multiple threats at sea, including bycatch. The typical characterization of bycatch, the number of individuals, ignores the long-term, population-wide repercussions of bycatch. Including an estimate of the reproductive value (RV, the loss of future reproductive contributions, given bycatch) is a complementary tool, incorporating the population-wide repercussions of bycatch. While bycatch management via dynamic spatial management allows management boundaries to move, it requires monitoring and enforcement to be effective. We provide a proof of concept to optimize bycatch enforcement activities by dynamically targeting areas of concentrated future productivity characterized by RV. This paper examined a population of black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris) as a case study. We calculate RV and apply it to at-sea distributions. This creates spatiotemporally explicit surfaces used to prioritize times and locations for bycatch mitigation enforcement. Dynamic enforcement has greater theoretical efficiency than static enforcement, but this difference decreases with increasing population-wide RV subject to enforcement. Though there are implementation challenges, many can be reduced with existing tools providing various opportunities. Incorporating RV when characterizing the impacts of bycatch on a population and strategically applying dynamic bycatch enforcement based on RV can be a powerful, efficient component of dynamic ocean management.