Genetics reveals where emperor penguins survived the last ice age

A group of emperor penguins is resting and preening
 next to a tide crack in the ice near the Gould Bay colony.
Credit: Dr Tom Hart

ANTARCTICA - A study of how climate change has affected emperor penguins over the last 30,000 years found that only three populations may have survived during the last ice age, and that the Ross Sea in Antarctica was likely the refuge for one of these populations.

The Ross Sea is likely to have been a shelter for emperor penguins for thousands of years during the last ice age, when much of the rest of Antarctica was uninhabitable due to the amount of ice.

The findings, published on 1 March in the journal Global Change Biology, suggest that while current climate conditions may be optimal for emperor penguins, conditions in the past were too extreme for large populations to survive.