Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to study individual behaviours linked to breeding habitat selection
in a long-lived colonial seabird, the black-legged kittiwake, and to determine their importance in
population responses to environmental changes occurring at different spatial and temporal
scales. First, experimental approaches including GPS and satellite tracking of individuals allowed
demonstrating that only failed breeders performed prospecting movements involving visits of
other breeding areas. These movements were recorded from egg incubation to chick rearing at
local spatial scales (<1 km) as well as large spatial scales (> 40km), in various environmental
conditions. Then, a population dynamic model considering different dispersal strategies showed
that contrarily to philopatry and random dispersal, personal and social information use by
individuals favoured population persistence in the long-term. Finally, capture-recapture models
highlighted indirect interactions between sampling designs of long-term surveys of marked
individuals and behaviours linked to dispersal. These interactions can notably bias the estimation
of demographic parameters such as annual survival rate. All our results demonstrate that
breeding habitat selection and dispersal are complex but essential processes in the
understanding of population functioning and they have to be considered in models predicting
the dynamics, structure and persistence of populations in response to environmental changes.