Emperor penguins are an endangered species. Scientists are protecting the largest of all penguins by monitoring their numbers precisely and investigating which factors affect their population. A research team led by Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) has now developed a new, reliable method at the Alfred Wegener Institute's Neumayer Station III, among others, that can accurately predict the number of breeding pairs and chicks and thus represents an early warning system for the progression of climate change in the Southern Ocean. The research team has published its findings in the journal Nature Communications.
Monitoring the global population of emperor penguins is a major challenge, as they inhabit Antarctica’s harsh and remote environment. Over the last two decades, researchers have been using satellite imagery, among other technologies to keep track of this threatened species. While it has provided valuable population data, the counts to date are still inconsistent and unreliable for a variety of reasons. The first is that satellite images can only be taken between October and April, otherwise there isn’t enough light in the polar winter to capture the species at their breeding sites. A further challenge is that the number of penguins present at a colony can vary significantly, as adults may come and go and the technology is not capable of monitoring chicks. Among other places, they were at the Antarctic Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. You can find out more about the current study in this FAU press release.