Penguins Expedition (I)
The Antarctic Peninsula and nearby islands are experiencing some of the most dramatic environmental changes on Earth. In combination with commercial fishing of their prey, this is placing enormous pressure on penguins in the region. This project will contribute to understanding the likely impacts of climate change on penguins.
We will aim to examine links between the ecology, morphology, and evolution of penguins, to better comprehend how different species and populations are physically adapted to their environments.
How? visiting penguin colonies of five species at the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and Antarctic Peninsula to collect data for analyses of genomics, morphology, and diet, and integrate these with data from historical museum specimens.
The field collections will emphasize Gentoo and king penguins, which have been shown to be responding to climate change already via southerly range expansions. The immediacy of the threat to these species, and our previous findings of genetically distinct populations for both species in the region, make these our top priority.
Our study will allow for a broader view of the evolution of penguin traits and ecology, and an assessment of how specialized or adaptable they are with respect to different traits. From this knowledge, we can identify populations that may be vulnerable to environmental change in the future.
Our field work is based in:
-Collect samples [blood, fecal, feathers, cloacal swabs, salvage carcasses] for studies on genomics, diet, disease.
-Collect data [morphological measurements, song recordings, populations census using drones].
-Permits to handle penguins and non-invasive recordings of seabirds.
We are nine researchers coming from six institutions and three countries.
Jane Younger is a Lecturer at the University of Bath. Jane’s research is on population genomics. She is interested in understanding how penguin populations have changed over time and are responding to climate change. Using DNA, she will examine how penguins at different locations have evolved and adapted to their environments, including what diseases they might be carrying. Her work has shown that Gentoo penguins are five distinct species. Jane has spent many years researching penguins but this is her first trip to the West Antarctic. Jane will soon return back to her homeland of Australia to continue her work on Antarctic marine systems.
Katie O’Brien is a NERC GW4+ PhD student at the University of Bath in the UK. She is interested in how animals adapt to their environment, especially in areas where climate change is most noticeable. She is traveling on the Pelagic Vinson to collect data on the adaptations of various penguin colonies across the Southern Ocean region. To do this, she is carrying out the smelly business of collecting poops, known scientifically as guano!
Sushma Reddy is a professor and curator of birds at the University of Minnesota and Bell Museum of Natural History. Her research focuses on multiple aspects of bird diversity. She is interested in how birds evolve using genetics, morphology, and other information and using this to examine how many species of penguins there are. She is also interested in collecting dead penguins for museum specimens to be studied by other researchers for decades to come. This is her first trip to the Southern Ocean and is really enjoying seeing and hearing the cackling penguin colonies.
Gemma Clucas is a postdoctoral fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She has been visiting Antarctica for the past ten years to study penguins. Most penguins, seals, and whales eat krill in Antarctica, but climate change and fishing pressure are reducing the amount of krill available to them. Gemma is collecting poop samples from the penguins to study what they have been feeding on and how this is changing. She is also using a drone to count the penguins in each colony so that we can understand how populations are changing over time.
Irby Lovette is a professor of Ornithology at Cornell University. He is fascinated by how birds have adapted to their different environments and many ways of life, from the tiny hummingbirds in the Andes to the hefty penguins sampled on this expedition. He is simultaneously exulting in the sheer abundance of marine birds and mammals in this very special part of the world.
Bryce Robinson is a PhD student at Cornell University. He studies bird coloration, particularly when a species comes in different color types, which is called polymorphism. Apart from providing assistance to the other researchers, his role in the expedition is to take photos and record videos, as well as record lists of all of the species encountered throughout the journey.
John Bates is curator of birds at the Field Museum in Chicago, since it is winter there, he thought it would be a good time to head south based on his past experiences studying genetic structure and evolution in tropical South America and Africa. He is also using this opportunity to gather eggshell samples for studying the evolution of egg variation in penguins by studying shape and structure change within and between penguin species.
Jacob C. Cooper is an IRACDA postdoctoral fellow at the University of Kansas accompanying this trip as a consultant. He is broadly interested in biogeography, evolution, and ecology of birds. He has worked extensively in the United States, Africa, and elsewhere, but this is his first trip to work with penguins. Jacob is about twice as tall as a King Penguin.
Rachael Herman is a NASA FINESST PhD student at Stony Brook University in New York, USA. She has spent the past ten years traveling the world living on remote islands studying seabirds. Her research focuses on how and why Gentoo Penguins are expanding their breeding range further and further south along the Western Antarctic Peninsula, while other penguin species are declining there! She uses satellite imagery to look at sea ice changes around new penguin colonies, and she collects blood samples to look at DNA to see how different colonies are related to one another. She is an expert penguin wrangler and has probably been covered in more Gentoo Penguin poo than anybody in the world.
Our funding sources include Field Museum Polar Studies Program, National Geographic Society, University of Bath (UK), University of Minnesota, Cornell University, Stony Brook University.
More information to come!
The Penguin 2022 expedition team
Overview:
The Penguin Expedition is a joint venture of American, British, and Australian ornithologists and penguin experts.
Aboard Vinson of Antarctica this group of scientists will sail from the Falkland Islands to South Georgia, South Shetland, and islands near the West Antarctic Peninsula, some of the most isolated areas on Earth.
Track:
https://earth.google.com/earth/d/14tGz3cS7BqsRTo7Qax-vLhJwHXIVjtxe?usp=sharing
