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Abstract
Tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) are unusual among seabirds in that they bear multiple colourful ornaments during the breeding season. They also engage in colony overflights when approaching the colony with food for their chicks. In this thesis I investigate the function of these traits since neither one makes any obvious direct contribution to their reproductive success.
Ornaments may serve as displays for gaining mates. Theory predicts that such traits should vary more than non-display traits. I found that tufted puffin ornaments were only slightly more variable in length than non-display traits and they exhibited low length and hue variation compared to putative display traits in other species.
Overflight behaviour of food-bearing tufted puffins might mitigate the risk of kleptoparasitism by gulls. Overflights were correlated with ecological variables (wind, puffin arrival rate, slope, gull presence, and gull pursuit activity) in the manner expected of evasive behaviour, but were positively correlated with kleptoparasitism events when these variables were statistically controlled for. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)