More than 70 percent of the global King penguin population may be nothing more than a memory in a matter of decades, as global warming will soon force the birds to move south, or disappear (Copyright: Robin Cristofari).
More than 70 percent of the global King penguin population, currently forming colonies in Crozet, Kerguelen and Marion sub-Antarctic islands, may be nothing more than a memory in a matter of decades, as global warming will soon force the birds to move south, or disappear. This is the conclusion of a study published in the current issue of the prestigious and performed by an international team of researchers from France, Monaco, Italy, Norway, South Africa, Austria and US. "The main issue is that there is only a handful of islands in the Southern Ocean and not all of them are suitable to sustain large breeding colonies" says Robin Cristofari, first author of the study, from the Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC/CNRS/University of Strasbourg) and the Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM). King penguins are in fact picky animals: in order to form a colony where they can mate, lay eggs and rear chicks over a year, they need tolerable temperature all year round, no winter sea ice around the island, and smooth beach of sand or pebbles. But, above all, they need an abundant and reliable source of food close by to feed their chicks. For millennia, this seabird has relied on the Antarctic Polar Front, an upwelling front in the Southern Ocean concentrating enormous amounts of fish on a relatively small area. Yet, due to climate change, this area is drifting south, away from the islands where most King penguins currently live.
UM DIESEN ARTIKEL ZU LESEN, ERSTELLEN SIE IHR KONTO
Und verlängern Sie Ihre Lektüre, kostenlos und unverbindlich.
