FLICKR, CHRISTOPHER MICHELEmperor penguin populations are on a slippery slope. Global colonies could lose nearly one-fifth of their members by the end of the century as a result of climate change, according to a study published this week (June 29) in Nature Climate Change.
Conservation biologists report the species’ population is currently stable. But emperor penguins need a certain amount of sea ice to survive. Too much sea ice increases the distances parents must travel to feed their chicks. Too little ice, however, reduces places to hide from predators, and decreases amounts of food sources such as krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that sustain penguins.
Biologist Hal Caswell from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and his colleagues combined climate models to predict sea-ice changes with demographic data from a well-studied colony of penguins at Terre Adélie in East Antarctica. They found nearly 75 percent of colonies were vulnerable to predicted changes in sea ice.
Most colonies were predicted to remain stable until approximately 2050; those around the Ross ...
