Data for: Faster growth and larger size at crèche onset are associated with higher offspring survival in Adélie Penguins ...

• Main Author: Jennings, Scott
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2023
• Subjects: FOS Biological sciences; Adélie penguin; growth; brood-guarding; survival; crèche; Cape Crozier; Crozier; Lynch; Ross Island; Ross Sea; Antarc*; Antarctica; South Polar Skuas
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d51c5b07d; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.d51c5b07d

We conducted the first assessment of Adélie Penguin chick survival that accounts for imperfect resighting. We found that when chicks are larger in size when they enter the crèche stage (the period when both parents forage at the same time and chicks are left relatively unprotected), they have a higher probability of survival to fledging. We investigated the relationships between growth, crèche-timing, and chick survival during one typical year and one year of reduced food availability. Chicks that hatched earlier in the season entered the crèche stage older, and chicks that both grew faster and crèched older entered the crèche at a larger size. These relationships were stronger in the year of reduced food availability. Thus, parents increased their chicks’ chance of fledging if they provided sufficient food for faster growth rates and/or extended the length of the brood-guarding period. Early nest initiation (i.e., early hatching) provided parents with the opportunity to extend the guard period and increase ... : Study system This study was conducted on Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica (77°27’15.00”S, 169°13’45.00”E) during the summers of 2012–13 and 2013–14 (hereafter 2012 and 2013, respectively). Cape Crozier is the largest Adélie Penguin colony in the southern Ross Sea and one of the largest for the species (Lynch and LaRue 2014). It is surrounded by hundreds of nesting South Polar Skuas (S. maccormicki), with most of the colony within skua foraging territories (Wilson et al. 2016). Our study included 43 chicks in 2012 and 69 in 2013 (112 total). Across both years, 84 chicks survived to the crèche stage and could be used to model crèching size and age and survival during that period. The mean crèching age was 21.3 days (SE = 0.46, range 15-26, n = 33) in 2012, and 18.9 days (SE = 0.41, range 10-25, n = 51) in 2013. Across the entire colony, not just study chicks, we observed that substantially more chicks died from apparent starvation in 2013 than in 2012. Although the average amount of food delivered to ...