Adélie Penguin Foraging Location Predicted by Tidal Regime Switching

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 underwat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS ONE
Main Authors: Oliver, Matthew J., Irwin, Andrew, Moline, Mark A., Fraser, William, Patterson, Donna, Schofield, Oscar, Kohut, Josh
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science 2013
Subjects:
Research Article
Palmer Deep
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559330
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23383091
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055163
Description
Summary: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.

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