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King penguin.
Credit: V.Viblanc/IPE |
Research has shown that
king penguins can get used to some, but not all, human interference. The study, published in the journal
BMC Ecology, looked at how a king penguin colony on the protected
Possession Island in the subantarctic Crozet Islands has adjusted to over 50
years of constant human disturbance.
A team of researchers from the
University of Strasbourg, the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (
CNRS) and the
University of Lausanne compared 15 king penguins breeding
in areas disturbed daily by humans and 18 penguins breeding in
undisturbed areas. The penguins in the study were all brooding a chick aged from
2 days to 1 month.
Using heart rate to indicate the stress level of each penguin, they
compared the stress response of penguins from the different areas to
three stressors. Two low intensity stressors, a human approach to 10
metres and a loud noise, mimicked the actions of tourists, researchers,
and noises from machines when operating on the outskirts of the colony.
One high intensity stressor, a capture, simulated researchers taking
measurements.
Compared with penguins from undisturbed areas, penguins from areas of
high human disturbance were less stressed by noise and approaching
humans. However, following capture, the maximum relative heart rate
of the penguins who were used to humans increased 42% higher than it did for undisturbed birds, although the human-acclimated penguins then recovered faster. Therefore, penguins seem to be getting used to human observers, but they do not habituate to being captured.
“Our findings report a case of physiological adjustment to human
presence in a long-studied king penguin colony, and emphasise the
importance of considering potential effects of human presence in
ecological studies,” said lead author Vincent Viblanc.
While penguins getting used to people may be beneficial to scientific
research and tourist management, this study also raises the
question of the potential influence of human activities on the selection
of specific phenotypes (traits). For example, could human disturbance cause those individual animals who are more stress-sensitive to progressively leave the
disturbed areas? For scientists
studying animals in their native habitat, it also underlines the
importance of physiological studies in interpreting results before
conservation measures are implemented.
Evaluating the impact of humans on protected wildlife such as king penguins is particularly important given the rise in popularity of
Antarctic tour groups. Dr Viblanc said that a central question for
ecologists is the extent to which anthropogenic (i.e. human) disturbances such as tourism might impact wildlife and affect the systems under study.
"One of the major pitfalls of such research is in forgetting
that, from the perspective of the wildlife studied, tourism and
scientific research are not two worlds apart," he said.
Source
Not so happy: king penguins stressed by human presence, 11 July 2012, BioMed Central
BMC Ecology citation
Coping with continuous human disturbance in the wild: insights from penguin heart rate response to various stressors. Vincent A Viblanc, Andrew D Smith, Benoit Gineste and René Groscolas, BMC Ecology 2012, 12:10 doi:10.1186/1472-6785-12-10
