A two-week leap in breeding: Study reveals Antarctic penguins’ striking climate adaptation - University of Oxford

A decade-long study led by Penguin Watch, at the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University, has uncovered a record shift in the breeding season of Antarctic penguins, likely in response to climate change. These changes threaten to disrupt penguins’ access to food and increase interspecies competition. The results have been published today (20 January - World Penguin Awareness Day) in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Lead author Dr Ignacio Juarez Martínez (University of Oxford/Oxford Brookes University) said: ‘Our results indicate that there will likely be ‘winners and losers of climate change’ for these penguin species. Specifically, the increasingly subpolar conditions of the Antarctic Peninsula likely favour generalists like Gentoos at the expense of polar specialists like the krill-specialist Chinstraps and the ice-specialist Adélies. Penguins play a key role in Antarctic food chains, and losing penguin diversity increases the risk of broad ecosystem collapse.’