Adélie penguin foraging location predicted by tidal regime switching.

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Matthew J Oliver, Andrew Irwin, Mark A Moline, William Fraser, Donna Patterson, Oscar Schofield, Josh Kohut
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2013
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Palmer Deep; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055163; https://doaj.org/article/a5fd270537ed4a9d9fb45c6474646102

Penguin foraging and breeding success depend on broad-scale environmental and local-scale hydrographic features of their habitat. We investigated the effect of local tidal currents on a population of Adélie penguins on Humble Is., Antarctica. We used satellite-tagged penguins, an autonomous underwater vehicle, and historical tidal records to model of penguin foraging locations over ten seasons. The bearing of tidal currents did not oscillate daily, but rather between diurnal and semidiurnal tidal regimes. Adélie penguins foraging locations changed in response to tidal regime switching, and not to daily tidal patterns. The hydrography and foraging patterns of Adélie penguins during these switching tidal regimes suggest that they are responding to changing prey availability, as they are concentrated and dispersed in nearby Palmer Deep by variable tidal forcing on weekly timescales, providing a link between local currents and the ecology of this predator.