Research

Monitoring seabird diets from fecal DNA

Seabirds can be fantastic indicators of ocean health and changes in their diets can often tell us about changes in the wider marine ecosystem. However, collecting dietary data can be difficult, especially since many seabirds nest on offshore islands and forage far from shore.

Fecal DNA metabarcoding can provide a solution, since we can often collect fecal samples from seabirds during brief visits to their colonies.

The SCAT team at the Cornell Lab is now able process thousands of fecal samples per year, allowing us to provide seabird diet monitoring to collaborators and partners around the world. This is vastly increasing the amount of seabird diet monitoring we can do, providing insights into our changing oceans and providing the data necessary for ecosystem-based management practices.

We have worked on a growing list of species, including: terns and skimmers on the East Coast of the USA; puffins, gannets, and Manx shearwaters across the North Atlantic; black-capped petrels (Diablotin) on Hispanola; tropicbirds in the Seychelles; and storm petrels in the USA and Canada.

If you are interested in diet monitoring from fecal samples, please get in touch as we are happy to provide this service to partners. Alternatively, if you are thinking about doing some fecal DNA metabarcoding yourself, I have put together a video explaining some best practices, which is on my videos and media page.

Some recent projects include:

2025. Kennerley WL, Clucas GV, Lyons DE, Yakola KC. What to eat when far from home? A vagrant seabird selects novel but analogous prey. Marine Ornithology 53 (2), 251-256

2025. Siddiqi-Davies K, Fisher-Reeves L, Morford J, Clucas GV*, Guilford T*. First description of Manx Shearwater, Puffinus puffinus, diet using DNA metabarcoding. Seabird Journal 37. *Indicates joint-senior authors.

2024. Clucas GV, Stillman A, Craig EC. From presence/absence to reliable prey proportions: A field test of dietary DNA for characterizing seabird diets. bioRxiv, 2024-03.

2024. Kennerley WL, Clucas GV, Lyons DE. Multiple methods of diet assessment reveal differences in Atlantic puffin diet between ages, breeding stages, and years. Frontiers in Marine Science, 11:1410805.

2024. Satgé YG, Janssen SE, Clucas GV, Rupp E, Patteson JB, Jodice PG. Mesopelagic diet as pathway of high mercury levels in body feathers of the endangered Black-capped Petrel (Diablotin) Pterodroma hasitata. Marine Ornithology, 52, 261-274.

Using UAVs to monitor penguin populations

I have been helping to monitor penguin colonies on the Antarctic Peninsula, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands using UAVs (drones) and tracking devices for the past decade in collaboration with the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes, and the British Antarctic Survey.

Using drones to count the nesting pairs of penguins from the air, fecal DNA to monitor their diets from their poops, and tracking devices to find out where they're foraging, we have managed to survey some previously data deficient regions, such as the remote and inhospitable South Sandwich Islands.

Despite discovering a mega-colony of Adélie penguins on the Danger Islands, the results overall are not promising, with declines in numbers of both Chinstrap and Adélie penguins in regions experiencing warming. We aim to continue monitoring these populations to determine the exact causes of the declines.

Head over to this page to get a taste of what these expeditions are like or read more here:

2026. Flynn CM, Hart T, Clucas GV, Lynch HJ. 2023. Penguins in the anthropause: COVID-19 closures drive gentoo penguin movement among breeding colonies. Biological Conservation, 286, p.110318.

2022. Clucas GV, Warwick-Evans V, Hart T, Trathan PN. Using habitat models for chinstrap penguins, Pygoscelis antarctica, to inform marine spatial management around the South Sandwich Islands during the penguin breeding season. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography. 199: 105093.

2021. Dickens J, Hollyman PR, Hart T, Clucas GV, Murphy EJ, Poncet S, Trathan PN, & Collins MA. Developing UAV Monitoring of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands’ Iconic Land-Based Marine Predators. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8:654215.

2018. Borowicz A, McDowall P, Youngflesh C, Sayre-McCord T, Clucas GV, Herman R, Forrest S, Rider M, Schwaller M, Hart T, and Jenouvrier S. Multi-modal survey of Adélie penguin mega-colonies reveals the Danger Islands as a seabird hotspot. Scientific reports, 8(1):3926.

Monitoring the diets of insectivorous birds

The fecal DNA techniques that I use to study seabirds can be applied to any animal that poops, so we're also monitoring the diets of insectivorous birds in the US by detecting the insect and spider DNA in their feces. Current projects include:

Monitoring the diets of woodpeckers and nuthatches during the emerald ash borer outbreak locally around Ithaca, NY. This is in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Stillman at the Lab of Ornithology.
Investigating the diets of insectivorous birds in apple orchards to determine whether the birds are providing significant pest control. I am working with Dr. Jen Walsh at the Lab of O on this project.
Monitoring the diets of Mountain Chickadees in the Sierra Nevada to determine how diets vary across elevations with Lauren Whitenack at the University of Nevada, Reno.

And previously I collaborated with Dr. Sarah Kaiser to characterize the diets of black-throated blue warblers in the Hubbard Brook experimental forest in New Hampshire:

2024. Kaiser SA, Forg LE, Stillman AN, Deitsch JF, Sillett TS, Clucas GV. Black‐throated blue warblers (Setophaga caerulescens) exhibit diet flexibility and track seasonal changes in insect availability. Ecology and Evolution, 14(9):e70340.

Prior to this, I worked on the population genomics of Atlantic cod and Antarctic penguins. Head to my publications page to see more of my past research outputs.

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