Relics: Penguin Population Programs
What has been responsible for the increase in Chinstrap penguin populations during the past 40 years in maritime Antarctica? One view ascribes it to an increase in availability of their prey brought on by the decrease in baleen whale stocks. The contrary opinion, attributes it to environmental warmi...
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crsagepubl:10.3184/003685001783239078 2024-09-15T17:48:46+00:00 Relics: Penguin Population Programs Sun, Liguang Xie, Zhouqing 2001 http://dx.doi.org/10.3184/003685001783239078 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3184/003685001783239078 en eng SAGE Publications http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license Science Progress volume 84, issue 1, page 31-44 ISSN 0036-8504 2047-7163 journal-article 2001 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.3184/003685001783239078 2024-08-19T04:28:42Z What has been responsible for the increase in Chinstrap penguin populations during the past 40 years in maritime Antarctica? One view ascribes it to an increase in availability of their prey brought on by the decrease in baleen whale stocks. The contrary opinion, attributes it to environmental warming. This causes a gradual decrease in the frequency of cold years with extensive winter sea ice cover. A number of penguin monitoring programs are in progress and are expected to provide some answers to these questions. Unfortunately, it is not easy to distinguish natural variability from anthropogenic change since penguins are easily accessible predators of krill and the feeding range of the penguins has almost overlapped with the krill fishery in time and space in the last four decades. Therefore it is important to reconstruct the change of ancient penguin abundance and distribution in the absence of human activity. Many efforts have focused on surveying the abandoned penguin rookeries, but this method has not been able to give a continuous historical record of penguin populations. In several recent studies, ancient penguin excreta was scooped from the penguin relics in the sediments of the lake on penguin rookery, Ardley Island, maritime Antarctica. In these studies, penguin droppings or guano soil deposited in the lake and changes in sediment geochemistry have been used to calculate penguin population changes based upon the geochemical composition of the sediment core. The results suggest that climate change has a significant impact on penguin populations. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica Ardley Island baleen whale Chinstrap penguin Sea ice SAGE Publications Science Progress 84 1 31 44 |
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English |
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What has been responsible for the increase in Chinstrap penguin populations during the past 40 years in maritime Antarctica? One view ascribes it to an increase in availability of their prey brought on by the decrease in baleen whale stocks. The contrary opinion, attributes it to environmental warming. This causes a gradual decrease in the frequency of cold years with extensive winter sea ice cover. A number of penguin monitoring programs are in progress and are expected to provide some answers to these questions. Unfortunately, it is not easy to distinguish natural variability from anthropogenic change since penguins are easily accessible predators of krill and the feeding range of the penguins has almost overlapped with the krill fishery in time and space in the last four decades. Therefore it is important to reconstruct the change of ancient penguin abundance and distribution in the absence of human activity. Many efforts have focused on surveying the abandoned penguin rookeries, but this method has not been able to give a continuous historical record of penguin populations. In several recent studies, ancient penguin excreta was scooped from the penguin relics in the sediments of the lake on penguin rookery, Ardley Island, maritime Antarctica. In these studies, penguin droppings or guano soil deposited in the lake and changes in sediment geochemistry have been used to calculate penguin population changes based upon the geochemical composition of the sediment core. The results suggest that climate change has a significant impact on penguin populations. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Sun, Liguang Xie, Zhouqing |
spellingShingle |
Sun, Liguang Xie, Zhouqing Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
author_facet |
Sun, Liguang Xie, Zhouqing |
author_sort |
Sun, Liguang |
title |
Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
title_short |
Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
title_full |
Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
title_fullStr |
Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
title_full_unstemmed |
Relics: Penguin Population Programs |
title_sort |
relics: penguin population programs |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2001 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3184/003685001783239078 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3184/003685001783239078 |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Ardley Island baleen whale Chinstrap penguin Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Ardley Island baleen whale Chinstrap penguin Sea ice |
op_source |
Science Progress volume 84, issue 1, page 31-44 ISSN 0036-8504 2047-7163 |
op_rights |
http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3184/003685001783239078 |
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Science Progress |
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84 |
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1 |
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31 |
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44 |
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1810290288948674560 |