Antarctic climate change: extreme events disrupt plastic phenotypic response in Adélie penguins

• Published in: PLoS ONE
• Main Authors: Lescroel, Amélie, Ballard, Grant, Grémillet, David, Authier, Matthieu, Ainley, David G.
• Other Authors: Biodiversité et gestion des territoires EA 7316, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), DST-NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2014
• Subjects: Animal Migration; Animals; Antarctic Regions; Climate change; Female; Ice Cover; Male; Models; Statistical; Oceans and Seas; Population Dynamics; Reproduction; Spheniscidae; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Antarc*; Antarctic; Iceberg*; Pygoscelis adeliae; Ross Sea; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01586129; https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01586129/document; https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01586129/file/pone.0085291.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085291

International audience In the context of predicted alteration of sea ice cover and increased frequency of extreme events, it is especially timely to investigate plasticity within Antarctic species responding to a key environmental aspect of their ecology: sea ice variability. Using 13 years of longitudinal data, we investigated the effect of sea ice concentration (SIC) on the foraging efficiency of Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) breeding in the Ross Sea. A 'natural experiment' brought by the exceptional presence of giant icebergs during 5 consecutive years provided unprecedented habitat variation for testing the effects of extreme events on the relationship between SIC and foraging efficiency in this sea-ice dependent species. Significant levels of phenotypic plasticity were evident in response to changes in SIC in normal environmental conditions. Maximum foraging efficiency occurred at relatively low SIC, peaking at 6.1% and decreasing with higher SIC. The 'natural experiment' uncoupled efficiency levels from SIC variations. Our study suggests that lower summer SIC than currently observed would benefit the foraging performance of Adélie penguins in their southernmost breeding area. Importantly, it also provides evidence that extreme climatic events can disrupt response plasticity in a wild seabird population. This questions the predictive power of relationships built on past observations, when not only the average climatic conditions are changing but the frequency of extreme climatic anomalies is also on the rise.