Climate Change Prompts Emperor Penguins To Find New Breeding Grounds

An anonymous reader writes Researchers have discovered that emperor penguins may not be faithful to their previous nesting locations, as previously thought. Scientists have long thought that emperor penguins were philopatric, returning to the same location to nest each year. However, a new research study showed that the penguins may be behaving in ways that allow them to adapt to their changing environment. Lead author Michelle LaRue said,"Our research showing that colonies seem to appear and disappear throughout the years challenges behaviors we thought we understood about emperor penguins. If we assume that these birds come back to the same locations every year, without fail, these new colonies we see on satellite images wouldn't make any sense. These birds didn't just appear out of thin air—they had to have come from somewhere else. This suggests that emperor penguins move among colonies. That means we need to revisit how we interpret population changes and the causes of those changes."

Comments

HUH?

[NetNed]

OK, and this is part of climate change how? They have done it for years, but now it's part of "climate change"?

Re:HUH?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

If you apply for a grant to study penguin breeding grounds . . . you won't get it approved.

If you apply for a grant to study penguin breeding grounds . . . affected by global climate change . . . you can have all the money you want.

Re:HUH?

[sg_oneill]

OK, and this is part of climate change how? They have done it for years, but now it's part of "climate change"?

Right. We do the anti-science thing in slashdot these days dont we. *sigh*

Penguin observations are something I'm fairly closely involved with professionally. That climate change affects penguins isn't controversial amongst researchers, its something we've known for a long time and studies on it go back to the 50s at least. Basically , penguins don't use magic to navigate, but rather fairly detailed memory of environmental conditions and landmarks. "Hey this is where the water turns cold with the shore to my right. I better start swimming south where there are more tasty fish" kind of thing. The problem is, these forms of navigation are super succeptible to environmental change, and whilst climate effects of CO2 are only starting to become widely felt, the effects on the ocean so far have been huge, particularly near the poles Again , none of this is controversial, we know this to be true.

Now I'm not much of an expert on Emperor penguins (The project I'm working with does obersvations of fairy penguins whos range isn't as far south as the emporers who are strictly ice dudes) but my understanding is they have never been observed to change nesting location so the question is *why*. Well Antarctic is interesting in that it doesn't change an awful lot, theres not a LOT of variables at play here , but one BIG change is that warmer currents coming in caused by climate change (Some marine biologists joke that climate change should be could 'sea change' because it tends to dispropirtionately affect oceans, and a 'sea change' might be your career path if you do climate science and the fundamentalist right regains power and starts defunding evolutionary biologists and climate physics again).

So its a guess that its the cause, but its a good guess because it seems the most likely candidate, all things considered.

No Evidence

[Jane Q. Public]

Any connection to "climate change" was purely speculative on the part of the article writer.

The research actually suggested that Emperor Penguins always had changed locations periodically. There is no evidence that modern times are in any way different.

The only thing this is "evidence" of is that lots of people today will try to blame anything and everything on "climate change".

Re:No Evidence

[drinkypoo]

If anything, this research actually weakens any argument that recent relocations are due to climate change, because it suggests that that they always have done it, long into the past.

It does no such thing. It neither strengthens or weakens that argument. The climate has changed before. This particular change is projected to be more severe than prior changes which these penguins have been through, which is why it's interesting.

Re:No Evidence

[NeutronCowboy]

Actually, it used to be speculated that changes in nesting populations of Emperor Penguins might have been due to Climate Change. Instead, this particular research indicates that those changes might be fairly normal migrations between nesting sites.

What we have here is science using new data to falsify an old assumption. Science to the rescue! As is article-reading.

Re:No Evidence

[Jane Q. Public]

It does no such thing.

Yes, it does. The argument was thus: the Emporer Penguins are changing locations, and they were not known to do that before. Therefore a possible cause is "climate change".

However, this research says that they did, in fact, do it before. Therefore the explanation of man-driven climate change as a probable cause IS weakened, because it has occurred in the past due to other causes. Q.E.D.

This particular change is projected to be more severe than prior changes which these penguins have been through, which is why it's interesting.

Projected by whom? Please be specific. History says otherwise. It has been both warmer and colder before, in the Antarctic. In recorded history, even. In fact, even in just the last century. Look up 1937.

Or, maybe...

[cirby]

...they got tired of all of the scientists following them around, year after year, tagging them and annoying the kids.

"Y'know, Marge, this place is just getting too touristy for me. Let's go somewhere quiet, farther down the beach."

Re:*ALL* Species adapt

[NeutronCowboy]

Without a doubt. The question is: is the environment changing faster than the species can adapt to it? We, the most adaptable species the earth has ever produced (if measured by how fast we can move into previously inhospitable environments) are still feeling significant effects from global climate change. The pine borer beetle, with its expanded range of warmer temperatures, is impacting whole chunks of communities that will have to adapt to brand new realities. What do you think is going to happen to species without opposable thumbs, a huge brain, and the ability to modify the environment on massive scales?

Re:*ALL* Species adapt

[Wycliffe]

*ALL* Species, without exception, adapt to their environment or go extinct. That is how they survive.

FTFY

Read the Article and it Contradicts the Headline

[thepainguy]

They thought decreasing numbers were due to birds dying, but they were actually due to birds changing breeding locations (for unknown reasons).

Basically, and contrary to the headline, the article says they don't know enough about penguin breeding behavior to draw any conclusions.

"Over five years in the late 1970s, the Southern Ocean warmed and at the same time the penguin colony at Pointe Géologie, declined by half (6,000 breeding pairs to 3,000 breeding pairs). The decline was thought to be due to decreased survival rates. In other words, researchers thought that the warming temperatures were negatively impacting the survival of the species...'It’s possible that birds have moved away from Pointe Géologie to these other spots and that means that maybe those banded birds didn’t die,' LaRue said. 'If we want to accurately conserve the species, we really need to know the basics. We’ve just learned something unexpected, and we should rethink how we interpret colony fluctuations.'”

P.S. Want to know why people are skeptical about climate change "science" and advocacy? It's because of blurbs like this one that say one thing in the headline and something else in the linked-to article.