A method to assess population changes in king penguins: the use of a Geographical Information System to estimate area-population relationships

• Published in: Polar Biology
• Main Authors: Chammaille-James, Simon, Guinet, Christophe, Nicoleau, Frédéric, Argentier, Marie
• Other Authors: Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé (CEBC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut atlantique d'amenagement des territoires, Université de Poitiers, Société SPOT Image
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2000
• Subjects: [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.ES]Environmental Sciences/Environmental and Society; Kerguelen; Kerguelen Islands; King Penguins; Polar Biology
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00193357; https://doi.org/10.1007/s003000000119

International audience During the last decades, king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) populations have been reported to increase throughout most of their breeding range. In this study, we compared the results obtained from direct counts of incubating king penguins with the results yielded by the estimation of the change in area occupied by breeding birds at the Ratmano€ king penguin colony at the Kerguelen Islands. The area of the colony was determined using a Geographical Informa- tion System with a georeferencing extension on aerial pictures taken in 1963, 1985 and 1998. Individual king penguin were counted on the same pictures or pictures taken on the same day. The overall population increase between 1963 and 1998 was 733% while the colony area increased by 677%. This study indicates that monitoring change in colony size is a good indicator for detecting and monitoring large population changes in king pen- guins, in particular for remote colonies. The discrepancy between the two results may be from two di€erent kinds of bias. Firstly, there could be a possible error in the estimation of the area occupied by the colony resulting from the georeferencing of oblique pictures, and sec- ondly, the density of king penguins may also change with population number. This method, which only requires high-altitude pictures, also reduces the possible disturbance to breeding made by low- to medium- altitude flights.