Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet
Sexually size-dimorphic species must show some difference between the sexes in growth rate and/or length of growing period. Such differences in growth parameters can cause the sexes to be impacted by environmental variability in different ways, and understanding these differences allows a better und...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4775033 2023-05-15T14:04:39+02:00 Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet Jennings, Scott Varsani, Arvind Dugger, Katie M. Ballard, Grant Ainley, David G. 2016-03-02 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4775033/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26934698 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4775033/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26934698 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. CC0 PDM Research Article Text 2016 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 2016-03-20T01:23:21Z Sexually size-dimorphic species must show some difference between the sexes in growth rate and/or length of growing period. Such differences in growth parameters can cause the sexes to be impacted by environmental variability in different ways, and understanding these differences allows a better understanding of patterns in productivity between individuals and populations. We investigated differences in growth rate and diet between male and female Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) chicks during two breeding seasons at Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica. Adélie Penguins are a slightly dimorphic species, with adult males averaging larger than adult females in mass (~11%) as well as bill (~8%) and flipper length (~3%). We measured mass and length of flipper, bill, tibiotarsus, and foot at 5-day intervals for 45 male and 40 female individually-marked chicks. Chick sex was molecularly determined from feathers. We used linear mixed effects models to estimate daily growth rate as a function of chick sex, while controlling for hatching order, brood size, year, and potential variation in breeding quality between pairs of parents. Accounting for season and hatching order, male chicks gained mass an average of 15.6 g d-1 faster than females. Similarly, growth in bill length was faster for males, and the calculated bill size difference at fledging was similar to that observed in adults. There was no evidence for sex-based differences in growth of other morphological features. Adélie diet at Ross Island is composed almost entirely of two species—one krill (Euphausia crystallorophias) and one fish (Pleuragramma antarctica), with fish having a higher caloric value. Using isotopic analyses of feather samples, we also determined that male chicks were fed a higher proportion of fish than female chicks. The related differences in provisioning and growth rates of male and female offspring provides a greater understanding of the ways in which ecological factors may impact the two sexes differently. Text Antarc* Antarctica Pygoscelis adeliae Ross Island PubMed Central (PMC) Cape Crozier ENVELOPE(169.400,169.400,-77.517,-77.517) Crozier ENVELOPE(169.400,169.400,-77.517,-77.517) Ross Island PLOS ONE 11 3 e0149090 |
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Research Article |
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Research Article Jennings, Scott Varsani, Arvind Dugger, Katie M. Ballard, Grant Ainley, David G. Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
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Research Article |
description |
Sexually size-dimorphic species must show some difference between the sexes in growth rate and/or length of growing period. Such differences in growth parameters can cause the sexes to be impacted by environmental variability in different ways, and understanding these differences allows a better understanding of patterns in productivity between individuals and populations. We investigated differences in growth rate and diet between male and female Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) chicks during two breeding seasons at Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica. Adélie Penguins are a slightly dimorphic species, with adult males averaging larger than adult females in mass (~11%) as well as bill (~8%) and flipper length (~3%). We measured mass and length of flipper, bill, tibiotarsus, and foot at 5-day intervals for 45 male and 40 female individually-marked chicks. Chick sex was molecularly determined from feathers. We used linear mixed effects models to estimate daily growth rate as a function of chick sex, while controlling for hatching order, brood size, year, and potential variation in breeding quality between pairs of parents. Accounting for season and hatching order, male chicks gained mass an average of 15.6 g d-1 faster than females. Similarly, growth in bill length was faster for males, and the calculated bill size difference at fledging was similar to that observed in adults. There was no evidence for sex-based differences in growth of other morphological features. Adélie diet at Ross Island is composed almost entirely of two species—one krill (Euphausia crystallorophias) and one fish (Pleuragramma antarctica), with fish having a higher caloric value. Using isotopic analyses of feather samples, we also determined that male chicks were fed a higher proportion of fish than female chicks. The related differences in provisioning and growth rates of male and female offspring provides a greater understanding of the ways in which ecological factors may impact the two sexes differently. |
format |
Text |
author |
Jennings, Scott Varsani, Arvind Dugger, Katie M. Ballard, Grant Ainley, David G. |
author_facet |
Jennings, Scott Varsani, Arvind Dugger, Katie M. Ballard, Grant Ainley, David G. |
author_sort |
Jennings, Scott |
title |
Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
title_short |
Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
title_full |
Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
title_fullStr |
Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sex-Based Differences in Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chick Growth Rates and Diet |
title_sort |
sex-based differences in adélie penguin (pygoscelis adeliae) chick growth rates and diet |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4775033/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26934698 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(169.400,169.400,-77.517,-77.517) ENVELOPE(169.400,169.400,-77.517,-77.517) |
geographic |
Cape Crozier Crozier Ross Island |
geographic_facet |
Cape Crozier Crozier Ross Island |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica Pygoscelis adeliae Ross Island |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica Pygoscelis adeliae Ross Island |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4775033/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26934698 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC0 PDM |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149090 |
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PLOS ONE |
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11 |
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3 |
container_start_page |
e0149090 |
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