Monitoring Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) populations in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica.
The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a seabird endemic to Antarctica and is a key sentinel species for the health of the Southern Ocean. Accurate and efficient population monitoring is required to understand how Adélie penguin populations respond to changes in their environment. Consequently,...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10092/107127 https://doi.org/10.26021/15374 |
| Summary: | The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a seabird endemic to Antarctica and is a key sentinel species for the health of the Southern Ocean. Accurate and efficient population monitoring is required to understand how Adélie penguin populations respond to changes in their environment. Consequently, some Adélie penguin populations have been monitored extensively for decades via various methods including ground assessment, aerial assessment via occupied and unoccupied aircraft, and Very High-Resolution satellite imagery (VHR). I comprehensively reviewed the suitability of these techniques for population and colony size estimation for Adélie penguins and provide guidance for future technique use and development. However, as the Southern Ocean and Antarctica face unprecedented changes due to global anthropogenic environmental change, monitoring Adélie penguins at regional to continental scales, rather than just locally, has become paramount. Remote monitoring techniques for Adélie penguins are therefore required, and so I explored the use of VHR imagery for monitoring four Adélie penguin colonies in the Ross Sea region of Antarctica, a key ecosystem in the Southern Ocean. I aimed to refine this tool for better assessment of colony changes over time through assessing the characteristics of the guano stains of the four Adélie penguin colonies over the austral summers of 2009-2021. I assessed for spatial and temporal autocorrelation and investigated the influence of colony specific spatial parameters, increasing the utility of this tool as a monitoring technique for Adélie penguins. This technique could be used concurrently with existing techniques, minimising some of the constraints of monitoring in a remote and logistically challenging environment such as Antarctica. I further provide recommendations on the future use of this technique based on my findings. Continuously updating and improving upon these monitoring techniques is vital for indicators species, such as the Adélie penguin, to better understand and inform ... |
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