ABSTRACT
Seabirds tend to lay large eggs and, in Procellariiformes and tropical seabirds particularly, a singleegg clutch is the rule. Many seabirds feed far offshore during the breeding season, greatly increasing the time away from the nest and the distance over which food has to be transported back to the nestling (Lack 1968, Nelson 1979, Rahn and Whittow 1984). Some tropical seabirds nest under extremely hot conditions; others (penguins) endure colder conditions at the nest site than those to which any other warm-blooded animal is exposed. Thus, the reproductive period may place great demands on the physiological resources of seabirds and the adaptations of seabirds to these stresses invariably have energetic consequences. Nevertheless, the geographical distribution of seabird breeding sites and seabirds’ exploitation of the full altricial-precocial developmental spectrum attest to the success of their breeding strategies.
