A Full Lifecycle Approach to Understanding Adelie Penguin Response to Changing Pack Ice Conditions in the Ross Sea.

南大洋罗斯海地区的海冰覆盖范围和持续时间都在不断增加。这些趋势与经过充分研究的南极半岛西部地区形成了鲜明对比，那里的海冰正在消失。与后者不同的是，人们对海冰覆盖范围的扩大如何影响南极地区的海洋生态系统知之甚少。该项目的目的是利用广泛认可的指示物种-阿德利企鹅，更好地了解不断变化的冰况对海洋生态系统的一些潜在影响。 为期四年的努力将建立在以前的结果跨越19个赛季在罗斯岛探索成功或失败的企鹅的年度周期的每一部分是如何影响冰条件和这些如何结转到下一个年度招聘周期，特别是关于企鹅的条件在春季抵达。 将继续通过PenguinCam和PenguinScience网站（每月点击量超过100万次的网站）和“NestCheck”（每年有300个教室登录的网站，使学生能够跟踪企鹅家庭的繁殖工作）促进教育和公共宣传活动。 为了鼓励学生追求科学技术工程和数学领域的教育和职业道路，该项目还将在企鹅杂志上提供来自该领域的故事，开发与新一代科学标准相一致的课堂活动，增加教学演示文稿的可用性，如powerpoint文件和简短的网络演示。 该项目将通过地方、州和国家关于企鹅、南极科学和气候变化的演讲活动提供更多的外联活动。年度外联工作的目标是通过网站接触15 000多名学生，通过介绍会和讲习班接触300名教师，并接触500名公众。该项目还将培训四名实习生（本科生和研究生），两名博士后研究人员和一名科学作家/摄影师。 该项目将实现三个主要目标，所有这些目标都与阿德利企鹅如何适应或科普环境变化有关。具体来说，该项目旨在确定1）罗斯海地区冬季海冰条件的变化如何影响企鹅的迁移，行为和生存，并改变后续繁殖的结转效应（COEs）; 2）影响COEs的外在和内在因素之间的相互作用多年的个人？的寿命;以及3）当地环境变化如何通过对筑巢栖息地的影响、与个体素质和COE的相互作用来影响种群变化。将使用19年的基于群体的数据进行回顾性分析，并收集有关单独标记的已知年龄和已知历史企鹅的额外信息，从新招募到可能衰老的个体。四年的新信息将获得基于两个殖民地（罗伊德角和克罗齐尔）的努力，使用射频识别标签，自动收集数据的标记，已知历史的鸟类的繁殖和觅食努力，探索企鹅的反应，资源的可用性在殖民地以及殖民地之间（配偶，筑巢材料，栖息地的可用性）。 额外的地理位置/时间深度记录器将用于调查这些鸟类在冬季的旅行和觅食。这些综合努力将允许评估企鹅在一个季节的行为/成功对其下一个季节行为的影响（例如冬季行为如何影响到达时间和随后繁殖的身体状况）。企鹅在个体层面上是否成功地应对了罗斯海地区持续的海洋栖息地变化。

The Ross Sea region of the Southern Ocean is experiencing growing sea ice cover in both extent and duration. These trends contrast those of the well-studied, western Antarctic Peninsula area, where sea ice has been disappearing. Unlike the latter, little is known about how expanding sea ice coverage might affect the regional Antarctic marine ecosystem. This project aims to better understand some of the potential effects of the changing ice conditions on the marine ecosystem using the widely-recognized indicator species - the Adélie Penguin. A four-year effort will build on previous results spanning 19 seasons at Ross Island to explore how successes or failures in each part of the penguin's annual cycle are effected by ice conditions and how these carry over to the next annual recruitment cycle, especially with respect to the penguin's condition upon arrival in the spring. Education and public outreach activities will continually be promoted through the PenguinCam and PenguinScience websites (sites with greater than 1 million hits a month) and "NestCheck" (a site that is logged-on by 300 classrooms annually that allows students to follow penguin families in their breeding efforts). To encourage students in pursuing educational and career pathways in the Science Technology Engineering and Math fields, the project will also provide stories from the field in a Penguin Journal, develop classroom-ready activities aligned with New Generation Science Standards, increase the availability of instructional presentations as powerpoint files and short webisodes. The project will provide additional outreach activities through local, state and national speaking engagements about penguins, Antarctic science and climate change. The annual outreach efforts are aimed at reaching over 15,000 students through the website, 300 teachers through presentations and workshops, and 500 persons in the general public. The project also will train four interns (undergraduate and graduate level), two post-doctoral researchers, and a science writer/photographer. The project will accomplish three major goals, all of which relate to how Adélie Penguins adapt to, or cope with environmental change. Specifically the project seeks to determine 1) how changing winter sea ice conditions in the Ross Sea region affect penguin migration, behavior and survival and alter the carry-over effects (COEs) to subsequent reproduction; 2) the interplay between extrinsic and intrinsic factors influencing COEs over multiple years of an individual?s lifetime; and 3) how local environmental change may affect population change via impacts to nesting habitat, interacting with individual quality and COEs. Retrospective analyses will be conducted using 19 years of colony based data and collect additional information on individually marked, known-age and known-history penguins, from new recruits to possibly senescent individuals. Four years of new information will be gained from efforts based at two colonies (Cape Royds and Crozier), using radio frequency identification tags to automatically collect data on breeding and foraging effort of marked, known-history birds to explore penguin response to resource availability within the colony as well as between colonies (mates, nesting material, habitat availability). Additional geolocation/time-depth recorders will be used to investigate travels and foraging during winter of these birds. The combined efforts will allow an assessment of the effects of penguin behavior/success in one season on its behavior in the next (e.g. how does winter behavior affect arrival time and body condition on subsequent breeding). It is at the individual level that penguins are responding successfully, or not, to ongoing marine habitat change in the Ross Sea region.