Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus Scientific name definitions

The Red-necked Phalarope, a member of the shorebird family, is functionally among the world's smallest seabirds. Smallest and daintiest of the 3 phalarope species, it spends up to 9 months of the year at sea, riding on a raft of dense belly plumage and feeding on tiny planktonic invertebrates at oceanographic fronts, convergences, and other discontinuities. During that time, both sexes are largely white with gray mantles and striking piratical black eye-patches, and are difficult to distinguish from their equally pelagic congener, the Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicaria), except by the fineness of their bills and bodies. Red-necked Phalaropes are famous, as are the other 2 species of phalarope, for lifting aquatic prey within reach by rapidly spinning in tight circles in a manner reminiscent of a slightly demented toy.

Formerly known as the Northern Phalarope, this species breeds widely across the Holarctic. Like other phalaropes, it is a polyandrous species in which sex roles are reversed; breeding females are distinguishable by brighter plumage than males and by slightly larger body size. The species is largely nonterritorial, but females fight ferociously over males, which provide all parental care. Nests are terrestrial, but the affinity of this species for water is evident through the feeding, fighting, and copulation on almost every small tundra pond.

Postbreeding, Red-necked Phalaropes migrate to pelagic wintering areas either over the open ocean or via inland bodies of water of all sizes and description. In western North America, tens of thousands use hypersaline lakes as fueling stations on their way south to the Humboldt Current off Peru and Ecuador. In eastern North America, massive flocks totaling millions formerly staged in fall in the western Bay of Fundy; in recent years, these have disappeared. This troubling development remains a puzzle, like much of the pelagic biology of this species, and has been mirrored by similar declines in numbers of migratory phalaropes observed off Japan.

The circumpolar distribution and sex-role reversal of this species has generated interest in its breeding biology since the early part of the twentieth century. Much of what is known about breeding behavior of Red-necked Phalaropes was first described in some form in Tinbergen's (Tinbergen 1935 Tinbergen, N. (1935). Field observations of East Greenland birds: I. The behavior of the Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus L.) in spring. Ardea 26:1-42. Close ) detailed observations in Greenland, and Hildén and Vuolanto's (Hildén and Vuolanto 1972 Hildén, O. and S. Vuolanto. (1972). Breeding biology of the Red-necked Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus in Finland. Ornis Fennica 49:57-85. Close ) multiyear study in Finland. More recently, the work of Colwell, Reynolds, and their colleagues in Canada (e.g., Colwell et al. Colwell et al. 1988a Colwell, M. A., S. D. Fellows and L. W. Oring. (1988a). Chronology of shorebird migration at Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada. Wader Study Group Bulletin 52:18-22. Close , Colwell et al. 1988b Colwell, M. A., C. L. Gratto, L. W. Oring and A. J. Fivizzani. (1988b). Effects of blood sampling on shorebirds: injuries, return rates, and clutch desertions. Condor 90:942-945. Close , Colwell et al. 1988c Colwell, M. A., J. D. Reynolds, C. L. Gratto, D. Schamel and D. Tracy. (1988c). Phalarope philopatry. Paper read at Proceedings of the XIXth International Ornithological Congress, at Ottowa, ON. Close ; Reynolds and Cooke 1988 Reynolds, J. D. and F. Cooke. (1988). The influence of mating systems on philopatry: a test with polyandrous Red-necked Phalaropes. Animal Behaviour 36:1788-1795. Close ; Reynolds 1987a Reynolds, J. D. (1987a). Mating system and nesting biology of the Red-neck Phalarope Phalaropus lobatus: what constrains polyandry? Ibis 129:225-242. Close ; Reynolds et al. 1986 Reynolds, J. D., M. A. Colwell and F. Cooke. (1986). Sexual selection and spring arrival times of Red-necked and Wilson's phalaropes. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 18:303-310. Close ), and Schamel and Tracy (Schamel and Tracy 1988 Schamel, D. and D. M. Tracy. (1988). Are yearlings distinguishable from older Red-necked Phalaropes? Journal of Field Ornithology 59:235-238. Close , Schamel and Tracy 1991 Schamel, D. and D. M. Tracy. (1991). Breeding site fidelity and natal philopatry in the sex role-reversed Red and Red-necked phalaropes. Journal of Field Ornithology 62:390-398. Close ) in Alaska has broadened our knowledge of the breeding biology of this species. The endocrinology of sex-role reversal in phalaropes was revealed by Höhn (Höhn 1963 Höhn, E. O. (1963). Steroid hormone content of the gonads of phalaropes and certain other birds in relation to sexual behavior in phalaropes. J. Physiol. 169:42-43. Close , Höhn 1970 Höhn, E. O. (1970). Gonadal hormone concentrations in Northern Phalaropes in relation to nuptial plumage. Canadian Journal of Zoology 48:400-401. Close ), Gratto-Trevor et al. (Gratto-Trevor et al. 1990a Gratto-Trevor, C. L., A. J. Fivizzani, L. W. Oring and F. Cooke. (1990a). Seasonal changes in gonadal steroids of a monogamous versus a polyandrous shorebird. General and Comparative Endocrinology 80:407-418. Close , Gratto-Trevor et al. 1990b Gratto-Trevor, C. L., L. W. Oring, A. J. Fivizzani, M. E. El Halawani and F. Cooke. (1990b). The role of prolactin in parental care in a monogamous and a polyandrous shorebird. Auk 107:718-729. Close ), and Oring and Fivizzani (Oring and Fivizzani 1991 Oring, L. W. and A. J. Fivizzani. (1991). "Reproductive endocrinology of sex-role reversal." In Proc. XX Intl. Ornithol. Congr., 2072-2091. Christchurch, New Zealand. Close ).

In contrast, very little is known about the migratory or wintering biology of the species at sea; our most detailed information about migration comes from a single saline lake in California (Winkler et al. 1977 Winkler, D. W., C. P. Weigen, F. B. Engstrom and S. E. Burch. (1977). "Ornithology." In An ecological study of Mono Lake, California., edited by D. W. Winkler, 88-113. Davis, Inst. Ecol. Publ. 12: 1-184: Univ. of California. Close , Jehl 1986b Jehl, Jr., J. R. (1986b). Biology of the Red-necked Phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus) at the western edge of the Great Basin in fall migration. Great Basin Nat. Mem. 46:185-197. Close , Rubega and Inouye 1994 Rubega, M. A. and C. Inouye. (1994). Switching in phalaropes: feeding limitations, the functional response and water policy at Mono Lake, CA. Biological Conservation 70:205-210. Close ) and the Bay of Fundy (Mercier 1985 Mercier, F. M. (1985). Fat reserves and migration of Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) in the Quoddy Region, New Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:2810-2816. Close , Mercier and Gaskin 1985 Mercier, F. and D. E. Gaskin. (1985). Feeding ecology of migrating Red-necked Phalaropes (Phalaropus lobatus) in the Quoddy region, New Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 63:1062-1067. Close , Brown and Gaskin 1988 Brown, R. G. B. and D. E. Gaskin. (1988). The pelagic ecology of the Grey and Red-necked phalaropes Phalaropus fulicarius and P. lobatus in the Bay of Fundy, eastern Canada. Ibis 130:234-250. Close ). Even less is known about its biology at sea, because of the logistical difficulties of finding and observing the species offshore. Since Murphy's (Murphy 1936 Murphy, R. C. (1936). Oceanic birds of South America. Vol. 2. New York: Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. Close ) account of vast flocks wintering in the Humboldt Current, a few workers have added distributional and diet data, and confirmed the affinity of these birds for oceanographic features that concentrate prey near the surface (Briggs et al. 1984 Briggs, K. T., K. F. Dettman, D. B. Lewis and W. B. Tyler. (1984). "Phalarope feeding in relation to autumn upwelling off California." In Marine birds: their feeding ecology and commercial fisheries relationships., edited by D. N. Nettleship, G. A. Sanger and P. F. Springer, 51-62. Ottawa, ON: Spec. Publ., Can. Wildl. Serv. Close ; Haney Haney 1985c Haney, J. C. (1985c). Wintering phalaropes off the southeastern United States: application of remote sensing imagery to seabird habitat analysis at oceanic fronts. Journal of Field Ornithology 56:321-333. Close , Haney 1986b Haney, J. C. (1986b). Seabird patchiness in tropical oceanic waters: the influence of Sargassum "reefs.". Auk 103:141-151. Close ; Tyler et al. 1993 Tyler, W. B., K. T. Briggs, D. B. Lewis and R. G. Ford. (1993). "Seabird distribution and abundance in relation to oceanographic processes in the California Current system." In The status, ecology and conservation of marine birds of the North Pacific., edited by K. Vermeer, K. T. Briggs, K. H. Morgan and D. Siegal-Causey, 48-60. Ottawa: Can. Wildl. Serv. Spec. Publ. Close ; Wahl et al. 1993 Wahl, T. R., K. H. Morgan and K. Vermeer. (1993). "Seabird distribution off British Columbia and Washington." In The status, ecology and conservation of marine birds of the North Pacific., edited by K. Vermeer, K. T. Briggs, K. H. Morgan and D. Siegel-Causey, 39-47. Ottawa: Can. Wildl. Serv. Spec. Publ. Close ).