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Antarctic penguins are being forced to breed earlier as temperatures rise, posing a major threat to two species facing extinction by the end of the century, a new study shows.
Between 2012 and 2022, temperatures in breeding colonies increased significantly by 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). This warming trend is causing three different penguin species to begin their breeding cycles about two weeks earlier than they did a decade ago, according to research published Tuesday in the Journal of Animal Ecology. This shift in timing can cause severe food shortages for chicks.
“penguin Biologist Ignacio Juarez Martinez, lead author of the study, said: Oxford University exist U.K.. “This is important because your breeding time needs to coincide with the time when resources are most available in the environment, which is primarily food for your chicks, so they have enough room to grow.”
For some perspective, scientists studied changes in the life cycle of the European bird great tit. Study co-author Fiona Suttle, another Oxford University biologist, said they found a similar two-week change, but it took 75 years compared with just 10 years for the three penguin species.
Researchers used remote-controlled cameras to film breeding conditions at dozens of penguin colonies between 2011 and 2021. They say this is the fastest change in life cycle timing they have ever seen in a vertebrate animal. All three species are brushtails, named for their tails that drag across the ice: the cartoon-eyed Adélie, the black-striped jawfish, and the fast-swimming gentoo.
suttle says climate change Winners and losers are being created among the three penguin species, and it occurs at a time in the penguin’s life cycle when food and competition for food are critical for survival.
Adélie penguins and chinstrap penguins are specialists and eat primarily krill. Papuans have a more diverse diet. They have bred at different times in the past, so there is no overlap and no competition. But the gentoo lizards are reproducing faster than the other two species, and there is now an overlap. Martinez and Suttle said this is a problem because gentoo lizards don’t migrate as far as the other two species, but they are more aggressive in finding food and establishing nesting areas.
Suttle said she returned in October and November to the same habitat where she had seen the Adélies in previous years, only to find their nests had been replaced by gentoo lizards. She said the data supports the changes she’s seen firsthand.
“Hatsbands are declining globally,” Martinez said. “Models show that at this rate they could become extinct before the end of the century. Adélie cats are doing very poorly in this regard. Antarctica peninsula, they are likely to become extinct Antarctic Peninsula before the end of this century. “
Martinez’s theory is that West Antarctica is warming – a second fasting heating site Earth Second only to the Arctic and North Atlantic – meaning less sea ice. Less sea ice means more spores appear in the Antarctic spring, he said, and then “you get this incredible bloom of phytoplankton,” which is the basis of the food chain that ultimately forms the penguins. And it happens earlier every year.
Not only are chinstrap and Adélie penguins more competitive with gentoo penguins for food due to a warming climate and changes in plankton and krill, but the changes are also bringing more commercial fishing, further shortening the penguin supply, Suttle said.
Michelle LaRue, professor of Antarctic marine sciences at the University of Canterbury, said this shift in breeding times “is an interesting signal of change, and it’s important to continue to look at these penguin populations now to see if these changes are having a negative impact on their populations.” New Zealand. She was not involved in the Oxford study.
Scientists are taking millions of photos every day (taken by 77 cameras every hour for 10 years) people Use the Penguin Watch website to help mark breeding activity.
“We’ve annotated over 9 million images with Penguin Watch,” Suttle said. “A lot of it is because people love penguins so much. They’re so cute. They’re on all the Christmas cards. People say, ‘Oh, they look like little waiters in tuxedos.'”
“I think the Adderleys’ personalities fit in with that,” Suttle said, adding that “there’s probably a cheekiness to them and these very cartoonish eyes that really look like they were freshly drawn.”