ESTIMATING ANNUAL SURVIVAL AND MOVEMENT RATES OF ADULTS WITHIN A METAPOPULATION OF ROSEATE TERNS

Several multistratum capture-recapture models were used to test variou s hypotheses about possible geographic and temporal variation in survi val, movement, and recapture/resighting probabilities of 2399 adult Ro seate Terns (Sterna dougallii) color-banded from 1988 to 1992 at the s ites of the four largest breeding colonies of this species in the nort heastern USA. Linear-logistic ultrastructural models also were develop ed to investigate possible correlates of geographic variation in movem ent probabilities. Based on goodness-of-fit tests and comparisons of A kaike's Information Criterion (AIC) values, the fully parameterized mo del (Model A) with time- and location-specific survival, movement, and capture probabilities, was selected as the most appropriate model for this metapopulation structure. With almost all movement accounted for , on average >90% of the surviving adults from each colony site return ed to the same site the following year. Variations in movement probabi lities were more closely associated with the identity of the destinati on colony site than with either the identity of the colony site of ori gin or the distance between colony sites. The average annual survival estimates (0.74-0.84) of terns from all four sites indicate a high rat e of annual mortality relative to that of other species of marine bird s.