ORIGINAL PAPER

Abstract We investigated one active and three aban-doned Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) colonies in northern Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, during austral summer 2000. Extinct colonies were located by ground survey on small islands and recognized by con-centrations of nest pebbles. The c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Steven D. Emslie, Æ Jennifer, D. Mcdaniel
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Subjects:
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.552.5338
http://people.uncw.edu/emslies/research/Emslie and McDaniel 2002.pdf
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Summary:Abstract We investigated one active and three aban-doned Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) colonies in northern Marguerite Bay, Antarctic Peninsula, during austral summer 2000. Extinct colonies were located by ground survey on small islands and recognized by con-centrations of nest pebbles. The colonies were excavated to recover organic remains from ornithogenic soils. Radiocarbon dates on penguin bone and eggshell pro-vided a 6,000-year occupation history after correction for the marine-carbon reservoir effect; this history was compared to the paleoclimate record (ice cores and marine sediments) to assess patterns in occupation by penguins with episodes of climate change. We quantified prey remains recovered from the sites to examine po-tential dietary shifts by penguins with climatic change. Two species, Antarctic silverfish (Pleuragramma ant-arcticum) and squid (Psychroteuthis glacialis), were most commonly represented in the sediments. The data in-dicate that silverfish may have been exploited more during cool, and squid in warm climatic intervals in the past.