Re-Constructing Historical Adélie Penguin Abundance Estimates by Retrospectively Accounting for Detection Bias
نویسندگان
چکیده
Seabirds and other land-breeding marine predators are considered to be useful and practical indicators of the state of marine ecosystems because of their dependence on marine prey and the accessibility of their populations at breeding colonies. Historical counts of breeding populations of these higher-order marine predators are one of few data sources available for inferring past change in marine ecosystems. However, historical abundance estimates derived from these population counts may be subject to unrecognised bias and uncertainty because of variable attendance of birds at breeding colonies and variable timing of past population surveys. We retrospectively accounted for detection bias in historical abundance estimates of the colonial, land-breeding Adélie penguin through an analysis of 222 historical abundance estimates from 81 breeding sites in east Antarctica. The published abundance estimates were de-constructed to retrieve the raw count data and then re-constructed by applying contemporary adjustment factors obtained from remotely operating time-lapse cameras. The re-construction process incorporated spatial and temporal variation in phenology and attendance by using data from cameras deployed at multiple sites over multiple years and propagating this uncertainty through to the final revised abundance estimates. Our re-constructed abundance estimates were consistently higher and more uncertain than published estimates. The re-constructed estimates alter the conclusions reached for some sites in east Antarctica in recent assessments of long-term Adélie penguin population change. Our approach is applicable to abundance data for a wide range of colonial, land-breeding marine species including other penguin species, flying seabirds and marine mammals.
منابع مشابه
Correction: Spatially Extensive Standardized Surveys Reveal Widespread, Multi-Decadal Increase in East Antarctic Adélie Penguin Populations
Seabirds are considered to be useful and practical indicators of the state of marine ecosystems because they integrate across changes in the lower trophic levels and the physical environment. Signals from this key group of species can indicate broad scale impacts or response to environmental change. Recent studies of penguin populations, the most commonly abundant Antarctic seabirds in the west...
متن کاملMapping the Abundance and Distribution of Adélie Penguins Using Landsat-7: First Steps towards an Integrated Multi-Sensor Pipeline for Tracking Populations at the Continental Scale
The last several years have seen an increased interest in the use of remote sensing to identify the location of penguin colonies in Antarctica, and the estimation of the abundance of breeding pairs contained therein. High-resolution (sub-meter) commercial satellite imagery (e.g., Worldview-1, Quickbird) is capable of colony detection and abundance estimation for both large and small colonies, a...
متن کاملPenguin tissue as a proxy for relative krill abundance in East Antarctica during the Holocene
Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is a key component of the Southern Ocean food web. It supports a large number of upper trophic-level predators, and is also a major fishery resource. Understanding changes in krill abundance has long been a priority for research and conservation in the Southern Ocean. In this study, we performed stable isotope analyses on ancient Adélie penguin tissues and in...
متن کاملAdélie Penguin Foraging Location Predicted by Tidal Regime Switching
Penguin foraging and breeding success depend on broad-scale environmental and local-scale hydrographic features of their habitat. We investigated the effect of local tidal currents on a population of Adélie penguins on Humble Is., Antarctica. We used satellite-tagged penguins, an autonomous underwater vehicle, and historical tidal records to model of penguin foraging locations over ten seasons....
متن کاملTime-lapse imagery of Adélie penguins reveals differential winter strategies and breeding site occupation
Polar seabirds adopt different over-wintering strategies to survive and build condition during the critical winter period. Penguin species either reside at the colony during the winter months or migrate long distances. Tracking studies and survey methods have revealed differences in winter migration routes among penguin species and colonies, dependent on both biotic and abiotic factors present....
متن کامل