Abstract
In this project, we have reviewed the available data and methodologies for improving the estimation of displacement and barrier effects from offshore wind farms (OWFs), and their resulting demographic consequences, using the individual based model, SeabORD (Searle et al. 2014, 2018). SeabORD is an individual-based simulation model that predicts the time/energy budgets of breeding seabirds during the chick-rearing period for four species of UK seabirds (Atlantic puffin, common guillemot, black-legged kittiwake and razorbill), and translates these into projections of population level adult annual survival and productivity. The model simulates foraging decisions of individual seabirds under the assumption that they are acting in accordance with optimal foraging theory. In the model, foraging behaviour of individual seabirds is driven by prey availability, travel costs, provisioning requirements for offspring, and behaviour of conspecifics. The model estimates productivity and adult survival, the latter resulting from estimates of adult mass at the end of the breeding season and published relationships between adult mass and subsequent survival. Baseline scenarios are compared with scenarios containing one or more ORDs.