Miss Andrea Polanowski1, Julie McInnes1,2, Bruce Deagle3, Meagan Dewar4, Benjamin Dupuis5, Louise Emmerson1, Toshitaka Imaki6, Tom Hart7, Jefferson Hinke8, Akiko Kato5, Jeong-Hoon Kim9, Jong-U Kim9, Nobuo Kokubun10, Iryna Kozeretska11, Ievgenia Prekrasna11, Marcus Salton1, Milan Sojitra2, Leonie Suter1, Vadym Tkachenko11, Claire Waluda12, Benjamin Viola2, Anna MacDonald1
1Australian Antarctic Division, , Australia, 2Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, , Australia, 3Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, , Australia, 4Future Regions Research Centre, Federation University, , Australia, 5Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, CNRS, La Rochelle Université, , France, 6Department of Polar Science, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, , Japan, 7Department of Biology, University of Oxford, , United Kingdom, 8Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, , United States, 9Korea Polar Research Institute, , Republic of Korea , 10National Institute of Polar Research, , Japan, 11National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine, , Ukraine, 12British Antarctic Survey, , United Kingdom
Biography:
TBC
Abstract:
The Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) is a circumpolar species that breeds on coastal areas on the Antarctic continent and surrounding islands. Adélie penguins are sentinel species of Antarctic ecosystem health as they depend on sea ice and are sensitive to the abundance and distribution of their primary prey – krill and fish. The use of DNA metabarcoding to monitor the diet of seabirds is a well-established technique that has previously been used to study Adélie penguin diet in East Antarctica, the Ross Sea region, and the South Orkney Islands. The aim of this study was to characterise diet across the species range, in a single season. In the summer of 2023/24, ~750 Adélie scat samples were collected during the guard and créche stages of the breeding cycle, from nine breeding sites across Antarctica, by teams from seven countries. Scat DNA was amplified with a universal 18S rRNA marker to gain a wide overview of diet composition, with a particular focus on relative abundances of fish and krill. The results will improve understanding of spatial variability in Adélie penguin diet across their distribution range in a single season and showcase the applicability of DNA dietary methods for large scale data synthesis. Comparisons of this circumpolar dataset to environmental variables and predictions, including sea ice extent and krill availability, will help understand regional and global challenges Adelie penguins may face in the future.