'Supercolony' of Adelie penguins discovered in Antarctica

ANTARCTICA – For the past 40 years, the total number of Adélie penguins, one of the most common on the Antarctic peninsula, has been steadily declining – or so biologists have thought. But a new study led by Stony Brook University ecologist Heather Lynch and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is providing new insights about this penguin species. In a Scientific Reports paper, the international research team announced the discovery of a previously unknown “supercolony” of more than 1,500,000 Adélie penguins in the Danger Islands, a chain of remote, rocky islands off of the Antarctic Peninsula’s northern tip.

Penguin-mounted video captures gastronomic close encounters of the gelatinous kind

SOUTHERN OCEANS – Footage from penguin-mounted mini video recorders shows four species of penguin eating jellyfish and other gelatinous animals, a food source penguins were not previously believed to eat. Scientists reported the findings this month in the Ecological Society of America's peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Video logs confirmed that penguins targeted gelatinous animals for meals  – the birds did not merely ingest them accidentally while aiming for fish or other prey. Connecting this link in the food web helps ecologists understand the ecological niche of "gelata", a group the authors have defined based on shared gelatinous physique and ocean habitat, though it includes organisms from very different branches of the tree of life.

Scientists track penguins by analysing tail feathers

ANTARCTICA – Knowing where and how Antarctic penguins, and other seabirds and marine predators, migrate is critical for conservation efforts. Electronic tracking devices have helped scientists track marine animals’ migration patterns, but the devices can be expensive, invasive for the animal and challenging to retrieve.

A pair of nesting adult chinstrap penguins
in the South Shetland Islands,
Antarctic Peninsula.
Photo credit: M. Polito, LSU

Now, scientists have discovered a new and potentially better way to track where penguins go over the winter using forensics. The study was published on 9 August in Biology Letters.

“You can say, penguins ‘are where they eat,’ because a geochemical signature of their wintering area is imprinted into their feathers,” said Louisiana State University (LSU) Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences Assistant Professor Michael Polito, the lead author of the study.

Chinstrap and Adélie penguins are part of the family of “brush-tailed” penguins named after their long, stiff tail feathers. These birds shed all of their feathers after each breeding season and before they migrate to their oceanic wintering grounds. However, their long tail feathers continue to grow well into the winter when penguins are at sea.

East Antarctica's Adelie penguin population more than double previous estimate

ANTARCTICA – Scientists have their best estimate yet of how many Adélie penguins live in East Antarctica, numbering almost six million, 3.6 million more than previously estimated.

The new research by a team of Australian, French and Japanese scientists used aerial and ground surveys, tagging and resighting data, and automated camera images over several breeding seasons.

The researchers focused on a 5000 kilometre stretch of coastline in East Antarctica, estimating 5.9 million birds and extrapolating that out to likely global estimate of 14–16 million birds.

Study shows mixed fortunes for Signy penguins

Gentoo penguins.
Photo credit: British Antarctic Survey

ANTARCTICA – A forty year study on a remote Antarctic island shows that while populations of two penguin species are declining, a third is increasing.

Analysis of census data from Signy Island in the South Orkney Islands reveals that, between 1978 and 2016, the number of chinstrap penguin pairs declined by nearly 70% and pairs of Adélie penguins dropped by more than 40%, but the number of gentoo penguin pairs more than trebled.

Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) say they have yet to understand the reasons behind the population changes but they mirror similar studies elsewhere.

Citizen scientists can now lend a hand in penguin conservation

Adelie penguin nesting on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Photo credit: Heather Lynch, Stony Brook University

USA – Ordinary citizens now have the opportunity to be penguin detectives and help scientists find Antarctica's undiscovered penguin colonies after the launch of a website that tracks Antarctic penguin populations.

The interactive and user-friendly tool was developed by Heather J. Lynch, PhD, an Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University, and colleagues. It is the first of its kind, and provides a lens into the world of scientists who analyse penguin living patterns, which are a strong indicator of climate change effects.

Dr Lynch and Mathew R. Schwaller, PhD, at NASA Goddard teamed up with Oceanites, Inc. to develop the Mapping Application for Penguin Populations and Projected Dynamics (MAPPPD): www.penguinmap.com.

Penguin populations could drop 60 percent by the end of the century

Adelie penguins at risk
Credit: University of Delaware/Megan Cimino

ANTARCTICA - Climate has influenced the distribution patterns of Adélie penguins across Antarctica for millions of years.

The geologic record shows that as glaciers expanded and covered Adélie breeding habitats with ice, penguin colonies were abandoned. When the glaciers melted during warming periods, this warming positively affected the Adélie penguins, allowing them to return to their rocky breeding grounds.

But now, University of Delaware (UD) scientists and colleagues report that this beneficial warming may have reached its tipping point.

Abandoned 'supercolony' may hold clues to penguins' response to climate change

More than 600,000 Adelie penguins nest on Cape Adare,
Antarctica. Photo credit: Steve Emslie, UNCW

ANTARCTICA – Researchers recently discovered that Antarctica’s most populous colony of Adélie penguins may have once been nearly twice the size it is today. Clues about why the colony grew so large and what caused the population to decline could help scientists chart the penguins’ response to changes in climate and food resources.

Collaborative research conducted by Louisiana State University (LSU), University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), University of California at Santa Cruz and University of Saskatchewan led to this discovery at Cape Adare, Antarctica.

Adelie penguins, gentoo penguins, food and robots

University of Delaware researchers are working
to better understand foraging competition between
Adelie and Gentoo penguins.
Photo credit: Chris Linder

ANTARCTICA - For hundreds of years, Adélie penguins have been breeding in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), which has recently become one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth.

At Palmer Station, a US research base located along the WAP, scientists have been monitoring Adélie penguin population declines for decades. There were 15,000 breeding pairs of Adélie penguins in 1975; today only a few thousand pairs are left.

Now, in a study published in Scientific Reports, University of Delaware oceanographers consider whether Adélie penguins and gentoo penguins - newcomers to the Palmer Station region over the last two decades - may be competing for the same food resources and whether this might exacerbate the Adélie population decline.

Adelie penguin numbers may expand as glaciers retreat

ANTARCTICA - Shrinking glaciers could lead to increasing numbers of Adélie penguins in East Antarctica, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.

The study shows that in the last 14,000 years the population of Adélie penguins has seen a 135-fold increase, as additional breeding sites become exposed by retreating glaciers. This population explosion suggests that current environmental conditions are more favourable for Adélie penguins than they were at the end of the last ice age.

Genetic evidence leaves sour and salty taste in penguins' mouths

King penguin.
Credit: Jianzhi "George" Zhang

Penguins apparently can't enjoy or even detect the savoury taste of the fish they eat or the sweet taste of fruit. 

A new analysis of genetic evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology this week suggests that penguins have lost three of the five basic tastes over evolutionary time. For them, it appears, food comes in only two flavours: salty and sour.

Many other birds can't taste sweet things either. But they do have receptors for detecting bitter and umami (or meaty) flavours.

"Penguins eat fish, so you would guess that they need the umami receptor genes, but for some reason they don't have them," said Jianzhi "George" Zhang of the University of Michigan, one of the authors of the study.

"These findings are surprising and puzzling, and we do not have a good explanation for them. But we have a few ideas." 

Genomes reveal penguins' secrets

Adélie penguin close up.
Credit: Yvette Wharton – The University of Auckland

ANTARCTICA - Two penguin genomes have been sequenced and analysed for the first time in the open access, open data journal GigaScience. The study reveals insights into how Adélie and emperor penguins have been able to adapt to the cold and hostile Antarctic environment.

Antarctic penguins are subject to extremely low temperatures, high winds and profound changes in daylight. They have developed complicated biological systems to regulate temperature and store energy for long-term fasting.

Most studies have focused on the physiological and behavioural aspects of their biology, but an international team of researchers has now analysed the DNA of the two Antarctic penguins relative to other bird species, revealing the genetic basis of their adaptations and their evolutionary history in response to climate change.

Penguin chick weights connected to local weather conditions

Adelie penguin chicks in Antarctica
Credit: Megan Cimino/University of Delaware

ANTARCTICA - Adélie penguins are an indigenous species of the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP), one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth. Since 1950, the average annual temperature in the Antarctic Peninsula has increased 2°C on average, and 6°C during winter.

As the WAP climate warms, it is changing from a dry, polar system to a warmer, sub-polar system with more rain.

University of Delaware (UD) oceanographers recently reported a connection between local weather conditions and the weight of Adélie penguin chicks in an article in Marine Ecology Progress Series, a top marine ecology journal.

Count Antarctic penguins from the comfort of your armchair

An automated camera set up by
the Australian Antarctic Division at
Whitney Point near Casey station.
Photo credit: Colin Southwell

ANTARCTICA - Always wanted to count penguins in Antarctica? Well now you can, with the Penguin Watch project, launched today by University of Oxford.

The project, led by ‘penguinologist’ Dr Tom Hart, is part of broader penguin health research, which needs volunteers to count penguins in thousands of photographs taken by automated cameras monitoring colonies for Australian Antarctic Division and UK scientists.

Online volunteers will count adults, chicks and eggs in photographs from some 30 Antarctic and subantarctic colonies of gentoo, chinstrap, king, emperor and Adélie penguins.

Strong links between Antarctic climate, phytoplankton, krill and penguins

Adélie penguins on Avian Island
along the West Antarctic Peninsula.
Photo credit: Donna Patterson-Fraser.

ANTARCTICA – A long-term study of the links between climate and marine life along the rapidly warming West Antarctic Peninsula reveals how changes in physical factors such as wind speed and sea-ice cover send ripples up the food web – from single-celled phytoplankton to Adélie penguins.

The study, published on 7 July in Nature Communications, is authored by members of the Palmer Long-Term Ecological Research (PAL-LTER) programme, which conducts annual shipboard surveys along the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. PAL-LTER scientists began studying the fast-changing region in 1990.

Adélie penguin population on the rise

Adelie penguins
Photo credit: Michelle LaRue,
University of Minnesota

Adélie penguins have long been considered a key indicator species to monitor and understand the effects of climate change and fishing in the Southern Ocean. A first-ever global census of this penguin species shows that the population is 3.79 million breeding pairs – 53% larger than previously estimated.

By using high-resolution satellite imagery, researchers from Stony Brook University and University of Minnesota have applied a new method that lets them regularly monitor Adélie penguins across their entire breeding range – and by extension the health of the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Their findings were published on 9 July in leading scientific journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances.

Climate change and penguin physiology

Adelie penguins
Photo credit: Charles Sturt University

ANTARCTICA - What can penguin physiology tell us about how these birds are affected by climate change? As part of a multi-national team studying Adélie penguins, ecologist Dr Melanie Massaro from Charles Sturt University in New South Wales, Australia, is finding out the answers to that question.

Dr Massaro's research trip to Cape Crozier on Ross Island in January this year was her 12th visit to Antarctica. She started as a lecturing scientist on Antarctic cruise ships, before making her first journey as a researcher in 2007. Since 2009, she has been part of a team that includes researchers from the USA, New Zealand and France studying Adélie penguins in the southern Ross Sea. 

Avian flu found in Antarctic penguins 'unlike anything else detected in the world'

Aeron Hurt with a penguin.
Credit: Aeron Hurt, WHO
Collaborating Centre for Reference
and Research on Influenza

ANTARCTICA – For the first time, an international team of researchers has identified an avian influenza virus in a group of Adélie penguins from Antarctica. 

The virus, found to be unlike any other circulating avian flu, is described in a study published this week in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Study author and Associate Professor Aeron Hurt, PhD, a senior research scientist at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Australia, said that while other research groups have detected influenza antibodies in penguin blood samples, no one had detected actual live influenza virus in penguins or other birds in Antarctica before.

Adélie penguin population approaches a 30-year high

ANTARCTICA - The Adélie penguin population in Antarctica's Ross Sea is booming, with numbers looking to be the highest they've been for 30 years.

While exact results of the latest census of won't be available for two months, current trends indicate that there could have been over a million Adélie penguin pairs breeding in the western Ross Sea over this Southern Hemisphere summer.

Bottom-up research to understand penguin diets

Cawtron Institute senior scientist Jonathan
Banks at work in Antarctica.
Photo credit: Cawthron Institute

ANTARCTICA - What can penguins' poo reveal about how the birds are affected by climate change and commercial fishing?

Cawthron Institute senior scientist Jonathan Banks, a faecal DNA specialist, is applying his unique expertise to an international research project into the impacts of climate change and commercial fishing on penguins, killer whales and seals - Antarctica’s top predators.