Dataset Information

Early diving behaviour in juvenile penguins: improvement or selection processes.

ABSTRACT: The early life stage of long-lived species is critical to the viability of population, but is poorly understood. Longitudinal studies are needed to test whether juveniles are less efficient foragers than adults as has been hypothesized. We measured changes in the diving behaviour of 17 one-year-old king penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus at Crozet Islands (subantartic archipelago) during their first months at sea, using miniaturized tags that transmitted diving activity in real time. We also equipped five non-breeder adults with the same tags for comparison. The data on foraging performance revealed two groups of juveniles. The first group made shallower and shorter dives that may be indicative of early mortality while the second group progressively increased their diving depths and durations, and survived the first months at sea. This surviving group of juveniles required the same recovery durations as adults, but typically performed shallower and shorter dives. There is thereby a relationship between improved diving behaviour and survival in young penguins. This long period of improving diving performance in the juvenile life stage is potentially a critical period for the survival of deep avian divers and may have implications for their ability to adapt to environmental change.

SUBMITTER: Orgeret F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5014042 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Early diving behaviour in juvenile penguins: improvement or selection processes.

Orgeret Florian F Weimerskirch Henri H Bost Charles-André CA

Biology letters 20160801 8

The early life stage of long-lived species is critical to the viability of population, but is poorly understood. Longitudinal studies are needed to test whether juveniles are less efficient foragers than adults as has been hypothesized. We measured changes in the diving behaviour of 17 one-year-old king penguins Aptenodytes patagonicus at Crozet Islands (subantartic archipelago) during their first months at sea, using miniaturized tags that transmitted diving activity in real time. We also equip ...[more]

PMID: 27484650

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Project description:BackgroundThe early life of marine apex predators is poorly known, particularly for diving species. The orientation and foraging skills are presumably less developed in juveniles than in adults, especially during their first year at sea when juveniles might disperse further than adults.MethodsOver two years of monitoring, we tracked the movements of 17 juvenile king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus, ~?1?year old) using satellite relay tags from Crozet Archipelago (Southern Indian Ocean), starting when birds left their natal colony for the first time. For comparison we also tagged 6 non-breeding adults, which at that stage, similar to juveniles, are unhampered by reproductive constraints and might roam further than breeders. We used a combination of cluster analysis and habitat modelling to investigate and compare the movement patterns and habitat use of experienced (non-breeding adults) and non-experienced (juveniles) individuals.ResultsWhile juvenile penguins and non-breeding adults followed similar routes, the movements by adults started later in the season and ranged over a considerably smaller area than juveniles. Net squared displacement analysis revealed that both groups did not move to a specific wintering area. Changes in direction of juveniles in respect to their departure island were similar and synchronous for both years. Habitat models revealed that foraging behaviour was affected by environmental variables such as wind or current speeds, sea surface temperature, or oceanic productivity, for both stages. Analysis of tracks revealed that birds moved predominately perpendicular or against the main direction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the prevailing wind during austral summer (juveniles only) and autumn (juveniles and non-breeding adults). However, both juveniles and adults were more likely to move against the prevailing winds if productivity increased along their trajectories.ConclusionsThe exceptional duration of our tracking study provided unprecedented insights into the distribution, habitat preferences and orientation of two poorly known life history stages of an expert avian diver. Our study suggests that juveniles might use both innate and learnt skills to reach profitable foraging areas during their first year at sea, which is critical in long-lived species.

Project description:Mitochondria play a key role in the balance of energy and heat production, and therefore the mitochondrial genome is under natural selection by environmental temperature and food availability, since starvation can generate more efficient coupling of energy production. However, selection over mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genes has usually been evaluated at the population level. We sequenced by NGS 12 mitogenomes and with four published genomes, assessed genetic variation in ten penguin species distributed from the equator to Antarctica. Signatures of selection of 13 mitochondrial protein-coding genes were evaluated by comparing among species within and among genera (Spheniscus, Pygoscelis, Eudyptula, Eudyptes and Aptenodytes). The genetic data were correlated with environmental data obtained through remote sensing (sea surface temperature [SST], chlorophyll levels [Chl] and a combination of SST and Chl [COM]) through the distribution of these species.We identified the complete mtDNA genomes of several penguin species, including ND6 and 8 tRNAs on the light strand and 12 protein coding genes, 14 tRNAs and two rRNAs positioned on the heavy strand. The highest diversity was found in NADH dehydrogenase genes and the lowest in COX genes. The lowest evolutionary divergence among species was between Humboldt (Spheniscus humboldti) and Galapagos (S. mendiculus) penguins (0.004), while the highest was observed between little penguin (Eudyptula minor) and Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) (0.097). We identified a signature of purifying selection (Ka/Ks?<?1) across the mitochondrial genome, which is consistent with the hypothesis that purifying selection is constraining mitogenome evolution to maintain Oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) proteins and functionality. Pairwise species maximum-likelihood analyses of selection at codon sites suggest positive selection has occurred on ATP8 (Fixed-Effects Likelihood, FEL) and ND4 (Single Likelihood Ancestral Counting, SLAC) in all penguins. In contrast, COX1 had a signature of strong negative selection. ND4 Ka/Ks ratios were highly correlated with SST (Mantel, p-value: 0.0001; GLM, p-value: 0.00001) and thus may be related to climate adaptation throughout penguin speciation.These results identify mtDNA candidate genes under selection which could be involved in broad-scale adaptations of penguins to their environment. Such knowledge may be particularly useful for developing predictive models of how these species may respond to severe climatic changes in the future.

Dataset Information

Early diving behaviour in juvenile penguins: improvement or selection processes.

Publications

Early diving behaviour in juvenile penguins: improvement or selection processes.

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