Northern Gannet in the Pacific

A Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), a species with a normal range in the North Atlantic, interacting with the native Brandt’s cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) sighted on the Farallon Islands, located off the coast of San Francisco, California in the Pacific Ocean. Novel interactions between species across Atlantic and Pacific Ocean basins may destabilize existing ecological relationships in the two basins. With the recent opening of the Northwest Passage in the Arctic due to melting sea ice barriers, Seabird McKeon, research biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Smithsonian Marine Station, and a team of scientists have noted increasing observations of Atlantic and Pacific species exchanging between the two ocean basins and are calling for the scientific community and citizen scientists to work together to systematically monitor potential migration through the newly opened waterway to track movement of these species and predict potential effects of newly established ranges. Read more on our blog.