OISEAUX MARINS ENTRE CIEL ET MERS

⚠️ This book is written in French.

Seabirds — birds of the open ocean — play with the winds and raging storms, doggedly returning to improbable islets battered by the waves. A salty life in the spray, thumbing their beaks at us land-dwellers.

Seabirds make up only 3% of the bird species recorded on the planet, yet they have colonized every ocean on Earth, from equatorial waters to polar seas. They span several families — sometimes with no direct kinship — that nevertheless share many traits, from the boobies, pelicans, and frigatebirds of tropical seas to the penguins of Antarctica and the auks of the Arctic. Through evolution, natural selection has shaped remarkable adaptations to the constraints of the marine environment, though these birds remain tied to dry land for breeding. Why do they so often form vast colonies? How do they find their food? Where do they migrate across the immense ocean expanses?

Top predators at the end of the food chain and sentinels of a changing world, these birds bear the full brunt of the upheavals affecting marine ecosystems. Will they adapt in time? With all the flavour of lived experience, the authors share their passion and their questions about the future of these adventurers of sea and sky.

Authors: Fabrice Genevois & Christophe Barbraud — Éditions Quae (Carnets de sciences), 2nd edition — 200 pages — Softcover, colour interior.