Date: November
7, 2018
Source: University
of Washington
Every
autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, Magellanic penguins leave their coastal
nesting sites in South America. For adults, their summer task -- breeding, or
at least trying to -- is complete. Newly fledged chicks and adults gradually head
out to sea to spend the winter feeding. They won't return to land until spring.
Yet life
for these birds when they winter offshore is largely a mystery to the
scientists who study Magellanic penguins -- and who advocate for their
conservation amid declining population numbers.
"The
winter period is something of a black box for us in terms of understanding
Magellanic penguins," said Ginger Rebstock, a University of Washington
research scientist. "We know the least amount about this part of their
year."
But
research by Rebstock and P. Dee Boersma, a UW professor of biology and founder
of the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, is starting to pry open that black box
and discover how Magellanic penguins from one nesting site, Punta Tombo in
Argentina, fare during the winter months. In a paper published Aug. 9 in the
journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, they report that the Río de la
Plata -- which drains South America's second-largest river system after the
Amazon -- strongly influences oceanographic conditions in the Magellanic
penguins' winter feeding waters. Those oceanographic features, they report,
show up in the body conditions of Magellanic penguin females, but not males,
when the penguins return to their nesting grounds in spring.
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