Warming temperatures are forcing Antarctic penguins to breed earlier

Warming temperatures are forcing Antarctic penguins to breed earlier and thats a big problem for two of the cute tuxedoed species that face extinction by the end of the century a study saidWith temperatures in the breeding ground increasing 54 degrees Fahrenheit 3 degrees Celsius from 2012 to 2022 three different penguin species are beginning their reproductive process about two weeks earlier than the decade before according to a study in Tuesdays Journal of Animal Ecology And that sets up potential food problems for young chicksPenguins are changing the time at which theyre breeding at a record speed faster than any other vertebrateiquest said lead author Ignacio Juarez Martinez a biologist at Oxford University in the United Kingdom And this is important because the time at which you breed needs to coincide with the time with most resources in the environment and this is mostly food for your chicks so they have enough to growFor some perspective scientists have studied changes in the life cycle of great tits a European bird They found a similar twoweek change but that took 75 years as opposed to just 10 years for these three penguin species said study coauthor Fiona Suttle another Oxford biologistResearchers used remote control cameras to photograph penguins breeding in dozens of colonies from 2011 to 2021 They say it was the fastest shift in timing of life cycles for any backboned animals that they have seen The three species are all brushtailed so named because their tails drag on the ice the cartooneye Adelie the blackstriped chinstrap and the fastswimming gentooWarming creates penguin winners losersSuttle said climate change is creating winners and losers among these three penguin species and it happens at a time in the penguin life cycle where food and the competition for it are critical in survivalThe Adelie and chinstrap penguins are specialists eating mainly krill The gentoo have a more varied diet They used to breed at different times so there were no overlaps and no competition But the gentoos breeding has moved earlier faster than the other two species and now theres overlap Thats a problem because gentoos which dont migrate as far as the other two species are more aggressive in finding food and establishing nesting areas Martinez and Suttle saidSuttle said she has gone back in October and November to the same colony areas where she used to see Adelies in previous years only to find their nests replaced by gentoos And the data backs up the changes her eyes saw she saidChinstraps are declining globally Martinez said Models show that they might get extinct before the end of the century at this rate Adelies are doing very poorly in the Antarctic Peninsula and its very likely that they go extinct from the Antarctic Peninsula before the end of the centuryiquestEarly bird dining causes problemsMartinez theorized that the warming western Antarctic iquest the secondfasting heating place on Earth behind only the Arctic North Atlantic iquest means less sea ice Less sea ice means more spores coming out earlier in the Antarctic spring and then iquestyou have this incredible bloom of phytoplanktoniquest which is the basis of the food chain that eventually leads to penguins he said And its happening earlier each yearNot only do the chinstraps and Adelies have more competition for food from gentoos because of the warming and changes in plankton and krill but the changes have brought more commercial fishing that comes earlier and that further shortens the supply for the penguins Suttle saidThis shift in breeding timing iquestis an interesting signal of change and now its important to continuing observing these penguin populations to see if these changes have negative impacts on their populationsiquest said Michelle LaRue a professor of Antarctic marine science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand She was not part of the Oxford studyPeoples penguin love helps scienceWith millions of photos iquest taken every hour by 77 cameras for 10 years iquest scientists enlisted everyday people to help tag breeding activity using the Penguin Watch websiteWeve had over 9 million of our images annotated via Penguin Watch Suttle said A lot of that does come down to the fact that people just love penguins so much Theyre very cute Theyre on all the Christmas cards People say Oh they look like little waiters in tuxedosThe Adelies I think their personality goes along with it as well Suttle said saying theres perhaps a kind of cheekiness about them and this very cartoonlike eye that does look like its just been drawn on