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Sea-ice and density-dependent factors affecting foraging habitat and behaviour of Adélie penguins throughout the breeding season

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Abstract

Seabird foraging activities are constrained by the heterogeneous distribution of prey, intra-specific competition, and the varying energy requirements throughout their life history. Investigations of intra-seasonal variation in foraging habitat will, therefore, provide clues to understand how predators respond to changes in the marine environment. As an abundant, central-place foraging mesopredator, we selected to examine this with Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) breeding in the Prydz Bay region where the sea-ice environment is heterogeneous and the largest populations in East Antarctica occur. In the summer of 2011/12, using GPS tracks, we calculated First Passage Time to extract Area Restricted Search (ARS) zones to indicate foraging intensity, and classified the ARS zones by K-means clustering. In total, 47, 64, 23 and 10 ARS zones were detected during early and late incubation, chick-guard and crèche stages (n = 4, 11, 6 and 3 birds). Higher and more stable sea-ice concentration and increased distance from the nearest major colony had positive effects on foraging intensity. The ARS zones were classified into nearshore, offshore and open water habitats. Birds used offshore areas and avoided open water during early incubation and crèche, when birds returned less frequently. During late incubation and chick-guard, when birds frequently returned, they used nearshore and open water areas as expected from the proportion of available habitats. Our results suggest that the pack ice and reduced intra-specific competition for prey were the preferred foraging condition for Adélie penguins, and highlight the importance of seasonal changes in sea-ice environment to their foraging habitat selectivity.

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Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study have been deposited in the Australian Antarctic Data Centre (https://data.aad.gov.au/) with the identifier “doi:https://doi.org/10.4225/15/58eee5502b047” and are available on reasonable request.

Code availability

The programme code used for the analyses are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the members of Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE) in Davis station for logistic supports in the field. We would like to thank Dr. Alex Fraser for providing fast ice map around Prydz Bay. Mr. David Smith kindly helped with GIS analyses.

Funding

This project was supported by Australian Antarctic Science projects #4087, #4088 and #4518 and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship for research abroad to NK. The Australian Antarctic Division provided logistics support for fieldwork in Antarctica.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Antarctic Division, 203 Channel Highway, Kingston, TAS, 7050, Australia

    Nobuo Kokubun, Louise Emmerson, Julie McInnes, Barbara Wienecke & Colin Southwell

  2. National Institute of Polar Research, 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, 190-8518, Japan

    Nobuo Kokubun

  3. Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 129, Hobart, TAS, 7001, Australia

    Julie McInnes

Authors
  1. Nobuo Kokubun
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  2. Louise Emmerson
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  3. Julie McInnes
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  4. Barbara Wienecke
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  5. Colin Southwell
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Contributions

NK, LE and CS designed research, NK, BW and JM conducted fieldwork, NK and LE analysed data, and NK wrote the paper with input from all other authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nobuo Kokubun.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethics approval

All procedures and the attachment of logging devices to penguins were with approval from the Australian Antarctic Division’s Animal Ethics Committee.

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Responsible Editor: V. Paiva.

Reviewers: A. Kato and K. Ludynia.

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Kokubun, N., Emmerson, L., McInnes, J. et al. Sea-ice and density-dependent factors affecting foraging habitat and behaviour of Adélie penguins throughout the breeding season. Mar Biol 168, 97 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03899-8

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