Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 106, Issue 6, Pages 1844-1847Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806638106
Keywords
bird populations; climate change; quasi-extinction; sea ice; stochastic matrix population models
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Funding
- Expeditions Polaires Francaises
- Institut Paul Emile Victor Program [IPEV 109]
- Terres Australes et Antarctiques Francaises
- The Office of Science
- U. S. Department of Energy
- Marie-Curie fellowship
- UNESCO/L'OREAL Women in Science program
- National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0816514] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Studies have reported important effects of recent climate change on Antarctic species, but there has been to our knowledge no attempt to explicitly link those results to forecasted population responses to climate change. Antarctic sea ice extent (SIE) is projected to shrink as concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) increase, and emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) are extremely sensitive to these changes because they use sea ice as a breeding, foraging and molting habitat. We project emperor penguin population responses to future sea ice changes, using a stochastic population model that combines a unique long-term demographic dataset (1962-2005) from a colony in Terre Adelie, Antarctica and projections of SIE from General Circulation Models (GCM) of Earth's climate included in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. We show that the increased frequency of warm events associated with projected decreases in SIE will reduce the population viability. The probability of quasi-extinction (a decline of 95% or more) is at least 36% by 2100. The median population size is projected to decline from approximate to 6,000 to approximate to 400 breeding pairs over this period. To avoid extinction, emperor penguins will have to adapt, migrate or change the timing of their growth stages. However, given the future projected increases in GHGs and its effect on Antarctic climate, evolution or migration seem unlikely for such long lived species at the remote southern end of the Earth.
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