Breeding season of Antarctic penguins shifting at ‘alarming’ rates, decade-long study finds

Listen to this article

Estimated 4 minutes

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.

Penguins in Antarctica are changing their breeding habits at record speed to survive rising temperatures from climate change, a decade-long study has found.

But the study published Tuesday in the Journal of Animal Ecology, which focused on three species of penguins, suggests different species are adapting at different speeds depending on their traits and vulnerabilities.

Winner and loser species

Ignacio Martinez, a biologist at the University of Oxford who led the study, said the findings suggest there could be “winners and losers of climate change” in terms of which species can adapt to the warming conditions more than their peers. Martinez’s team studied Gentoo, Adélie and chinstrap penguins.

The Gentoos, a more temperate species that can eat fish in addition to krill and can live near their nesting grounds year-round, seem to be winning the race to adapt. Their breeding season showed the most change, shifting 13 days earlier on average.

“When we looked at the time series of 10 years one after the other, we realized, oh damn, this is the fastest change in any vertebrate ever,” Martinez said.

“The change is massive.”

Man stands beside post-mounted camera with penguins int he background — Ignacio Juarez services a monitoring camera overlooking a chinstrap penguin colony at Spigot Peak, Antarctica. Once a year, researchers download the images, change the batteries and check on the stability of the tripods for their 77 cameras. (Ignacio Juarez Martinez)

The chinstrap and Adélie penguins, meanwhile, rely on krill for their diet and migrate hundreds to thousands of kilometres throughout the year. They recorded a shift in breeding seasons of 10 days on average.

Martinez’s team used a network of 77 time-lapse cameras to monitor the three penguin species across Antarctica. They studied 37 colonies of penguins scattered across the vast Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding islands.

The painstaking observation was important because it allowed scientists to observe three species of penguins that live close to each other, all facing accelerating global warming that’s up to three times faster than in the rest of the world.

WATCH | Climate science on the first all-Canadian voyage to Antarctica:

Come along for the first-ever all-Canadian voyage to Antarctica, get a rare front-row seat to climate science, and witness geopolitics in action in this CBC News Special Presentation.

What this means for the future of penguins

The researchers say that on one hand, it’s remarkable the penguins are adapting so quickly — over the 10 years of their data collection — to a changing climate.

But on the other hand, the varying rates of adaptation for the different species mean that they may start coming into conflict with each other over land and food.

Martinez said that while it seems the Gentoos have the upper hand, establishing new colonies and growing their numbers while the other two decline, it’s not a good picture overall for the future of penguins.

“If only one [species] survives, then … we will only have one species to survive the next change,” he said.

“If we only have one species, the chances that species survives is very scarce.”

adelie penguin and chick — An Adélie penguin sits with its chick at Madder Cliffs colony, Antarctica. This species lives in the iciest of conditions and its numbers are shrinking in West Antarctica. (Ignacio Juarez Martinez)

Beyond penguins, the bigger picture

While penguins may be changing their schedules at the fastest rate, they’re not the only species shifting their breeding and migration patterns with climate change.

A study published last week in Nature Communications compiled data on 75 bird, mammal and reptile species around the world and the timing of activities such as egg laying over the past 15 to 25 years. It found that on average, they were shifting these activities earlier, and it was happening faster in species living closer to the poles.

Penguins on rocky landscape with huge glacier in background — A Gentoo colony nests at Neko Harbour in front of a cracking glacier. Gentoos are expanding across the Antarctic Peninsula amid warmer conditions. (Ignacio Juarez Martinez)

Viktoriia Radchuk, senior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research and the lead author of that study, said on average, populations of a species didn’t change as they changed the timing of their migration and breeding.

“They actually allow populations to remain stable in their numbers on average, which is a good sign,” she said. With those timing shifts, it appears “species are able to adapt to changing climate.”

The penguin study couldn’t yet determine how the shift in breeding seasons was affecting penguin populations of the different species, but it was something Martinez and his colleagues intend to look at next.