Declining health status of Brown Skua (Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi) parents and their offspring during chick development

During breeding, Brown Skuas (Stercorarius antarcticus lonnbergi) perform a great physical effort in the care and maintenance of the nest. Interestingly, the breeding colony on which this work was conducted is in steady decline in recent years. In order to understand the physiological background responsible for the trade off between reproductive effort and health status, in adults and the possible reasons for the colony decline, we evaluated the...