COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: A Multi-scale Approach to Understanding Spatial and Population Variability in Emperor Penguins

帝企鹅是一种标志性的海鸟，分布在整个南极海岸线的殖民地。帝企鹅是南大洋健康状况的一个重要指标物种，因为它们在生命周期的大部分时间依赖海冰，这意味着它们的数量可能会受到南极洲周围海冰范围和持续时间变化的影响。虽然存在帝企鹅分布和总体种群规模的基线数据，但关于种群规模在各个殖民地如何变化的数据仅限于少数几个地点。因此，人们对当地或区域环境条件的变化如何影响当地或全球人口状况的了解甚少。通过将卫星遥感的既定方法与对整个大陆的几个殖民地的地面和空中调查相结合，该项目将对54个已知的帝企鹅殖民地进行人口估计。十年尺度的人口趋势数据将与环境变量（例如，海冰的范围和持续时间等），以揭示哪些条件影响区域和大陆规模的种群波动。该项目将与国际合作者合作，培养博士后助理和未来的科学家，并开发公民科学和K-12外展计划。这一关于帝企鹅种群的项目将利用高分辨率卫星图像量化整个南极大陆上企鹅的存在/不存在、群体规模和轨迹。对于一部分殖民地，将把从高分辨率卫星图像得出的人口估计数与通过空中调查确定的人口估计数进行比较。通过对高分辨率图像进行监督分类和最大似然计算的迭代，这一经验证的信息将用于确定所有帝企鹅群体的人口估计数。将使用广义线性模型评估空间、地球物理和环境变量对种群规模和十年期趋势的影响。这项研究将导致有史以来第一个帝企鹅种群趋势和栖息地适宜性的实证结果，并将利用目前资助的NSF基础设施和托管网站，近实时地向公众发布结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The emperor penguin is an iconic seabird that is found in colonies distributed around the entirety of the Antarctic coastline. Emperor penguins are an important indicator species for the health of the Southern Ocean because their reliance on sea ice for major parts of their life cycle means that their population can be influenced by changes in the extent and duration of sea ice around Antarctica. Although baseline data exists on emperor penguin distributions and overall population size, data on how population size varies at individual colonies is limited to only a few locations. Thus, knowledge about how changes in local or regional environmental conditions impacts local or global population status is poorly understood. By combining established methods in satellite remote sensing with ground and aerial surveys of several colonies across the continent, this project will generate population estimates for the 54 known emperor penguin colonies. Decadal scale population trend data will be combined with environmental variables (e.g., sea ice extent and duration among others) to reveal which conditions influence population fluctuations at regional and continental scales. The project will engage with international collaborators, train post-doctoral associates and future scientists, and develop citizen science and K-12 outreach programs. This project on emperor penguin populations will quantify penguin presence/absence, and colony size and trajectory, across the entire Antarctic continent using high-resolution satellite imagery. For a subset of the colonies, population estimates derived from high-resolution satellite images will be compared with those determined by aerial surveys. This validated information will be used to determine population estimates for all emperor penguin colonies through iterations of supervised classification and maximum likelihood calculations on the high-resolution imagery. The effect of spatial, geophysical, and environmental variables on population size and decadal-scale trends will be assessed using generalized linear models. This research will result in a first ever empirical result for emperor penguin population trends and habitat suitability, and will leverage currently-funded NSF infrastructure and hosting sites to publish results in near-real time to the public.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.