MOESM17 of BMC ecology image competition 2017: the winning images

Additional file 17. Breeding terns. “Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea) mate for life. They breed on the ground and both sexes share incubation duties. This photo taken in Svalbard shows that vocal communication between mates is very important to coordinate parental efforts in order to achieve a successful reproduction. But this is not all. Finding a good place where to breed may be hard in human-modified landscapes. This couple of Arctic terns found a clever solution to solve this difficult problem: they made their own house on an abandoned shovel.” Attribution: David Costantini (Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, France).