Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet
International audience Returning to the shore after a feeding sojourn at sea, king penguins often undertake a relativelylong terrestrial journey to the breeding colony carrying a heavy, mostly frontal, accumulationof fat along with food in the stomach for chick-provisioning. There they mustsurvive a...
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fthalin2p3:oai:HAL:hal-01356715v1 2024-05-12T08:06:30+00:00 Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet Willener, Astrid S. T. Handrich, Yves Halsey, Lewis G. Strike, Siobhán Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC) Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC) Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Department of Life Sciences University of Roehampton, United Kingdom 2016 https://hal.science/hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715/document https://hal.science/hal-01356715/file/journal.pone.0147784.PDF https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 en eng HAL CCSD Public Library of Science info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715/document https://hal.science/hal-01356715/file/journal.pone.0147784.PDF doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess ISSN: 1932-6203 EISSN: 1932-6203 PLoS ONE https://hal.science/hal-01356715 PLoS ONE, 2016, 11 (2), pp.e0147784. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0147784⟩ [SDE]Environmental Sciences info:eu-repo/semantics/article Journal articles 2016 fthalin2p3 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 2024-04-17T15:53:39Z International audience Returning to the shore after a feeding sojourn at sea, king penguins often undertake a relativelylong terrestrial journey to the breeding colony carrying a heavy, mostly frontal, accumulationof fat along with food in the stomach for chick-provisioning. There they mustsurvive a fasting period of up to a month in duration, during which their complete reliance onendogenous energy stores results in a dramatic loss in body mass. Our aim was to determineif the king penguin’s walking gait changes with variations in body mass.We investigatedthis by walking king penguins on a treadmill while instrumented with an accelerationdata logger. The stride frequency, dynamic body acceleration (DBA) and posture of fat (prefasting;13.2 kg) and slim (post fasting; 11 kg) king penguins were assessed while theywalked at the same speed (1.4km/h) on a treadmill. Paired statistical tests indicated no evidencefor a difference in dynamic body acceleration or stride frequency between the twobody masses however there was substantially less variability in both leaning angle and theleaning amplitude of the body when the birds were slimmer. Furthermore, there was someevidence that the slimmer birds exhibited a decrease in waddling amplitude. We suggestthe increase in variability of both leaning angle and amplitude, as well as a possibly greatervariability in the waddling amplitude, is likely to result from the frontal fat accumulation whenthe birds are heavier, which may move the centre of mass anteriorly, resulting in a less stableupright posture. This study is the first to use accelerometry to better understand the gaitof a species within a specific ecological context: the considerable body mass change exhibitedby king penguins. Article in Journal/Newspaper King Penguins HAL-IN2P3 (Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules) PLOS ONE 11 2 e0147784 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
HAL-IN2P3 (Institut national de physique nucléaire et de physique des particules) |
op_collection_id |
fthalin2p3 |
language |
English |
topic |
[SDE]Environmental Sciences |
spellingShingle |
[SDE]Environmental Sciences Willener, Astrid S. T. Handrich, Yves Halsey, Lewis G. Strike, Siobhán Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
topic_facet |
[SDE]Environmental Sciences |
description |
International audience Returning to the shore after a feeding sojourn at sea, king penguins often undertake a relativelylong terrestrial journey to the breeding colony carrying a heavy, mostly frontal, accumulationof fat along with food in the stomach for chick-provisioning. There they mustsurvive a fasting period of up to a month in duration, during which their complete reliance onendogenous energy stores results in a dramatic loss in body mass. Our aim was to determineif the king penguin’s walking gait changes with variations in body mass.We investigatedthis by walking king penguins on a treadmill while instrumented with an accelerationdata logger. The stride frequency, dynamic body acceleration (DBA) and posture of fat (prefasting;13.2 kg) and slim (post fasting; 11 kg) king penguins were assessed while theywalked at the same speed (1.4km/h) on a treadmill. Paired statistical tests indicated no evidencefor a difference in dynamic body acceleration or stride frequency between the twobody masses however there was substantially less variability in both leaning angle and theleaning amplitude of the body when the birds were slimmer. Furthermore, there was someevidence that the slimmer birds exhibited a decrease in waddling amplitude. We suggestthe increase in variability of both leaning angle and amplitude, as well as a possibly greatervariability in the waddling amplitude, is likely to result from the frontal fat accumulation whenthe birds are heavier, which may move the centre of mass anteriorly, resulting in a less stableupright posture. This study is the first to use accelerometry to better understand the gaitof a species within a specific ecological context: the considerable body mass change exhibitedby king penguins. |
author2 |
Département Ecologie, Physiologie et Ethologie (DEPE-IPHC) Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC) Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Department of Life Sciences University of Roehampton, United Kingdom |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Willener, Astrid S. T. Handrich, Yves Halsey, Lewis G. Strike, Siobhán |
author_facet |
Willener, Astrid S. T. Handrich, Yves Halsey, Lewis G. Strike, Siobhán |
author_sort |
Willener, Astrid S. T. |
title |
Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
title_short |
Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
title_full |
Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
title_fullStr |
Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fat King Penguins Are Less Steady on Their Feet |
title_sort |
fat king penguins are less steady on their feet |
publisher |
HAL CCSD |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://hal.science/hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715/document https://hal.science/hal-01356715/file/journal.pone.0147784.PDF https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 |
genre |
King Penguins |
genre_facet |
King Penguins |
op_source |
ISSN: 1932-6203 EISSN: 1932-6203 PLoS ONE https://hal.science/hal-01356715 PLoS ONE, 2016, 11 (2), pp.e0147784. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0147784⟩ |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715 https://hal.science/hal-01356715/document https://hal.science/hal-01356715/file/journal.pone.0147784.PDF doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147784 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
11 |
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2 |
container_start_page |
e0147784 |
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