Climate Change Infographics: Translating Complex Seabird Ecology & Oceanographic Data into Clear Visual Narratives

USA Department of the Interior/ Dr. John Piatt (Research Wildlife Biologist Emeritus, USGS)

Project Overview

This project represents a high-level data-visualization initiative commissioned under the U.S. Department of the Interior, developed in close collaboration with renowned marine ecologist Dr. John Piatt (USGS). The objective was to design a series of comprehensive editorial infographics mapping out complex marine food webs, ecological stressors, and environmental threats impacting vulnerable seabird populations.

Translating multi-decade biological data sets into a digestible, public-facing format requires a strict balance between absolute scientific accuracy and engaging graphic design.

Trophic Cascades & Nutritional Decline

Primary Productivity Depletion within the Pelagic Food Web

As ocean temperatures rise, the stratification of the water column restricts nutrient upwelling from the deep sea, causing a severe shift at the very base of the marine food web. Warm waters favor smaller, less nutritious phytoplankton species over large, fatty diatoms, while simultaneously forcing a shift toward carbohydrate-heavy, protein-poor planktonic compositions. Because the primary energy flow is compromised, herbivorous zooplankton suffer severe caloric deficits. This nutritional depletion cascades rapidly up the trophic levels: forage fish find far less plankton available, resulting in a dramatic reduction in fish condition and carrying capacity. The fish grow significantly thinner and experience mass population drops, depriving top marine predators of essential, high-fat sustenance.

Latent Species Shifts & Geographic Disconnect

Thermal Migration and the Disruption of Prey Diversity

Rapidly warming sea surface temperatures are driving a massive biogeographical restructuring of marine life, as species shift their distributions toward higher latitudes to remain within their optimal thermal ranges. Forage fish species are migrating further north into colder polar waters, altering the local species composition. For stationary or regionally dependent seabird colonies, this geographic disconnect triggers severe localized food shortages. The localized depletion of cold-water prey species drastically reduces both the overall biomass and the demographic diversity of the available prey, leaving marine birds with sparse, unstable food options during critical breeding and nesting seasons.

Altered Interspecies Competition

Resource Partitioning and Apex Forage Pressures

Climate-driven reductions in baitfish availability intensify competitive pressures among top marine predators foraging within shared ecological niches. Apex species with broader geographic mobility or highly adaptive foraging strategies—such as Atlantic cod and large baleen whales (like humpbacks)—rapidly adjust their feeding areas and behavior to heavily monopolize remaining schooling fish reserves. Specialist or less mobile predators, such as Atlantic puffins, are outcompeted in this heightened struggle for limited resources. The visual captures the asymmetric ecological pressure as dominant marine competitors diminish the forage success of vulnerable seabirds.

Energetic Depletion & Deep-Water Foraging

The Metabolic Cost of Diving Beneath the Thermocline

As surface layers warm, forage fish are forced to retreat deep beneath the ocean's thermocline to find cold, oxygen-rich waters. To access their prey, visual subsurface predators must dive deeper, navigating less visible, darker, and high-pressure zones. This tactical shift imposes a severe metabolic penalty: the birds are forced to spend exponentially more kinetic energy to capture the exact same volume of food. This drastic imbalance in the energetic budget—where the metabolic cost of foraging outweighs the caloric intake of the catch—directly impacts adult survival rates and leads to widespread reproductive failure across colonies.