A 1000-year record of Adélie penguin diets in the southern Ross Sea

Non-krill prey remains were recovered from ornithogenic sediments at three active Adélie penguin colonies on Ross Island, to assess long-term dietary trends in this species. Radiocarbon dates place the age of these deposits from a maximum of 947 years ago to the present. We identified 12 taxa of fis...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antarctic Science
Main Authors: POLITO, MICHAEL, EMSLIE, STEVEN D., WALKER, WILLIAM
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2002
Subjects:
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Ross Island
Ross Sea
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Antarctic Science
Antarctic silverfish
Antarctica
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0954102002000184
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0954102002000184
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Summary:Non-krill prey remains were recovered from ornithogenic sediments at three active Adélie penguin colonies on Ross Island, to assess long-term dietary trends in this species. Radiocarbon dates place the age of these deposits from a maximum of 947 years ago to the present. We identified 12 taxa of fish and two of squid with the Antarctic silverfish ( Pleuragramma antarcticum ) as the most abundant prey species represented at all sites. In addition, silverfish have decreased in importance in Adélie penguin diet over the past 600 years, perhaps in response to climate change since the onset of the Little Ice Age, though it remains much more abundant in current penguin diet in the Ross Sea than in the Antarctic Peninsula. Other prey taxa reflect the diversity of prey selection by Adélie penguins in Antarctica.

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