Foraging strategies of a top-marine predator during the breeding season : the Macaroni penguin from Crozet and Kerguelen Islands

• Main Author: Bon, Cécile
• Other Authors: La Rochelle, Bost, Charles-André
• Format: Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Écologie comportementale; Stratégies d’approvisionnement; Habitats; Cycle de reproduction; Manchots; Océan austral; Ecology; Foraging strategies; Oceanographic features; Breeding cycle; Penguins; Southern ocean; envir; geo; Austral; Austral Ocean; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands; Southern Ocean; Crozet Islands; Îles Crozet; Macaroni penguin; Marion Island
• Online Access: http://www.theses.fr/2016LAROS004/document

The Austral Ocean still hosts a great population of marine predators (i.e. penguins, albatross, and seals). Despite well studied, the functional approach investigating the relationship between prey and predators in the marine ecosystem is still poorly known. Knowledge on habitat selection and use of marine species is essential to better understand their ecology and behaviour. The knowledge about the ecology of key species is essential to characterise and identify the areas to protect and to predict the future of populations that may be affected by global changes. This is particularly true in an area where the natural ecosystems are more and more perturbed by anthropogenic activities (i.e. over-fishing, pollution, and climate change). The Macaroni penguin is the most abundant penguin species in the Austral Ocean (> 6 millions pairs). It is also the biggest consumer of secondary resources, in terms of biomass, in the world. Over the past 30 years the Macaroni penguin populations situated in South Georgia and Marion Island suffered of 30% population decline. At the moment, Kerguelen and Crozet Islands (French Southern Territories) still host more than 50% of their global population, however the foraging behaviour of this species is still poorly known. The objective of this research is to study the different foraging behaviour strategies of a pelagic seabird : the Macaroni penguin Eudyptes chrysoplophus during its whole breeding cycle (incubation, brood, crèche). The populations’object of study breed in different oceanographic conditions : the Kerguelen and Crozet archipelagos. The variation in foraging behaviour driven by energetic constraints, which is associated to the reproduction and to the biological production, has been studied in details. Telemetry data (i e. trajectories and diving behaviour) combined with environmental data obtained by remote sensing allowed determining that : 1) Foraging strategies of Macaroni penguin breeding in two different locations differ in terms of movement, foraging effort and ...