Juvenile emperor penguin range calls for extended conservation measures in the Southern Ocean

Houstin, Aymeric; Dp, Zitterbart; Heerah, Karine; Eisen, Olaf; Planas-Bielsa,; Fabry, Ben; Cl, Bohec

doi:10.1101/2021.04.06.438390

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Nevertheless, this result provides new and important information for population management and the conservation of marine biodiversity. Adequate marine spatial planning requires comprehensive scienti c knowledge on the species' distribution (Barton et al 2015;Hays et al 2019;Houstin et al 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploitation of distant Antarctic habitats by juvenile macaroni penguins: conservation implications

Thiebot

Bost

2023

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The at-sea ecology of marine migratory species has been unevenly studied across life-cycle stages, which limits our understanding of how distant marine ecosystems may be connected. The macaroni penguin Eudyptes chrysolophus is the largest avian consumer of marine resources in the world, however no at-sea distribution data are available on this species’ juvenile birds. In this study we successfully tracked nine juvenile macaroni penguins during their post-fledging dispersal from Kerguelen Is., a key population in the southern Indian Ocean. Fledglings crossed the Antarctic Polar Front to the south and unexpectedly reached the Marginal Ice Zone after two months at sea, travelling up to 2,500 km to the southeast of their colony until transmissions ceased. The fact that abundant predators such as juvenile macaroni penguins target Antarctic sea ice habitats to forage is fundamentally new for the species and has important consequences for the management of Antarctic prey resources. Our study brings new elements that clarify the species’ ecology during a critical stage of its life cycle, and expand its known connectivity to adjacent ecosystems; these findings will help refining conservation strategies for the southern Indian Ocean populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploitation of distant Antarctic habitats by juvenile macaroni penguins: conservation implications

Thiebot

Bost

2023

Preprint

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“…The dataset generated and analysed during this study is available in the Movebank Data Repository, [ 82 ]. Data is also available in the electronic supplementary material [ 83 ].…”

Section: Data Accessibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Juvenile emperor penguin range calls for extended conservation measures in the Southern Ocean

et al. 2022

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To protect the unique and rich biodiversity of the Southern Ocean, conservation measures such as marine protected areas (MPAs) have been implemented. Currently, the establishment of several additional protection zones is being considered based on the known habitat distributions of key species of the ecosystems including emperor penguins and other marine top predators. However, the distribution of such species at sea is often insufficiently sampled. Specifically, current distribution models focus on the habitat range of adult animals and neglect that immatures and juveniles can inhabit different areas. By tracking eight juvenile emperor penguins in the Weddell Sea over 1 year and performing a meta-analysis including previously known data from other colonies, we show that conservation efforts in the Southern Ocean are insufficient for protecting this highly mobile species, and particularly its juveniles. We find that juveniles spend approximately 90% of their time outside the boundaries of proposed and existing MPAs, and that their distribution extends beyond (greater than 1500 km) the species' extent of occurrence as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Our data exemplify that strategic conservation plans for the emperor penguin and other long-lived ecologically important species should consider the dynamic habitat range of all age classes.

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Reviews and syntheses: A framework to observe, understand and project ecosystem response to environmental change in the East Antarctic Southern Ocean

Gutt

Arndt²,

Barnes³

et al. 2022

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Systematic long-term studies on ecosystem dynamics are largely lacking from the East Antarctic Southern Ocean, although it is well recognized that they are indispensable to identify the ecological impacts and risks of environmental change. Here, we present a framework for establishing a long-term cross-disciplinary study on decadal timescales. We argue that the eastern Weddell Sea and the adjacent sea to the east, off Dronning Maud Land, is a particularly well suited area for such a study, since it is based on findings from previous expeditions to this region. Moreover, since climate and environmental change have so far been comparatively muted in this area, as in the eastern Antarctic in general, a systematic long-term study of its environmental and ecological state can provide a baseline of the current situation, which will be important for an assessment of future changes from their very onset, with consistent and comparable time series data underpinning and testing models and their projections. By establishing an Integrated East Antarctic Marine Research (IEAMaR) observatory, long-term changes in ocean dynamics, geochemistry, biodiversity, and ecosystem functions and services will be systematically explored and mapped through regular autonomous and ship-based synoptic surveys. An associated long-term ecological research (LTER) programme, including experimental and modelling work, will allow for studying climate-driven ecosystem changes and interactions with impacts arising from other anthropogenic activities. This integrative approach will provide a level of long-term data availability and ecosystem understanding that are imperative to determine, understand, and project the consequences of climate change and support a sound science-informed management of future conservation efforts in the Southern Ocean.

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Juvenile emperor penguin range calls for extended conservation measures in the Southern Ocean

Cited by 3 publications

References 51 publications

Exploitation of distant Antarctic habitats by juvenile macaroni penguins: conservation implications

Exploitation of distant Antarctic habitats by juvenile macaroni penguins: conservation implications

Juvenile emperor penguin range calls for extended conservation measures in the Southern Ocean

Reviews and syntheses: A framework to observe, understand and project ecosystem response to environmental change in the East Antarctic Southern Ocean

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