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扩大。这些趋势与经过充分研究的南极半岛西部地区形成对比，那里的海冰一直在消失。与后者不同的是，关于海冰覆盖范围的扩大可能会如何影响南极地区的海洋生态系统，人们知之甚少。该项目旨在利用公认的指示物种--阿德利企鹅--更好地了解冰况变化对海洋生态系统的一些潜在影响。一项为期四年的努力将在罗斯岛之前19个季节的结果的基础上进行，以探索企鹅年度周期每个部分的成功或失败如何受到冰层条件的影响，以及这些影响如何延续到下一个年度招募周期，特别是关于企鹅在春季到达时的情况。将继续通过企鹅科学网站(每月点击量超过100万次)和“NestCheck”(每年有300个教室登录的网站，允许学生跟踪企鹅家庭的繁殖努力)来促进教育和公共宣传活动。为了鼓励学生在科学、技术、工程和数学领域寻求教育和职业发展道路，该项目还将在企鹅期刊上提供实地故事，开发符合新一代科学标准的课堂准备活动，增加以PowerPoint文件和简短网络视频形式提供的教学演示。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。一年一度的外联工作旨在通过该网站接触到15,000多名学生，通过演讲和讲习班接触到300名教师，以及500名普通公众。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应对环境变化有关。具体地说，该项目试图确定1)罗斯海地区不断变化的冬季海冰条件如何影响企鹅的迁徙、行为和生存，并改变后续繁殖的遗留效应(COE)；2)影响企鹅个体多年的COE的内在和外部因素之间的相互作用？S的一生；以及3)当地环境变化如何通过影响筑巢栖息地、与个体质量和COE相互作用来影响种群变化。回溯性分析将使用19年的基于群体的数据，并收集关于个别标记的、已知年龄和已知历史的企鹅的额外信息，从新招募的企鹅到可能衰老的个体。将从两个企鹅群(罗伊德角和克罗泽)的工作中获得为期四年的新信息，使用射频识别标签自动收集标记的已知历史鸟类的繁殖和觅食努力的数据，以探索企鹅对群内和群间的资源可用性(配偶、筑巢材料、栖息地可用性)的反应。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。综合努力将能够评估企鹅在一个季节的行为/成功对下一个季节的行为的影响(例如，冬季行为如何影响到达时间和随后繁殖的身体状况)。企鹅对罗斯海地区正在进行的海洋栖息地变化的反应是否成功，是在个体层面上的。

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.