Paleo-Food Web Dynamics of Antarctic Krill Predators
The Southern Ocean is a classic “canary in the coalmine” for the impacts of rapid climate change and anthropogenic disturbance on ecosystem function and resilience. Penguins, which are central nodes in Antarctic food webs, act as sensitive bioindicators of ecosystem health. We use modern field collections, historical museum archives, and paleontological excavations to obtain multi-millennial time series of penguin feather and eggshells. We then apply compound-specific stable isotope analysis (CSIA) to explore how recent climate change and historic overharvesting of marine mammals have influenced foraging and population dynamics of Antarctic penguins. We are also working with colleagues to map the redistribution of predator populations with ArcGIS to provide a history of population movements, which will be overlaid on large-scale isoscapes (geospatial contour maps of stable isotope data) for the Southern Ocean to aid in our understanding of biogeochemical cycling in the region. This research provides an unprecedented look into how past climate change and anthropogenic exploitation altered polar food webs through time, and provides a window into predicted future food web responses in a rapidly warming World.
We have also partnered with PenguinWatch, an international collaboration of scientists interested in year round monitoring of penguin ecology using remote time lapse cameras pointing at penguin colonies throughout the Southern Ocean. This research feeds directly into policy as we build evidence to determine important regions for penguins and highlight specific colonies of concern. Specifically, we aim to:
1. Determine chick survival and breeding success, and how this varies across species ranges and between years
2. Identify the causes of chick mortality (e.g. predation in the colony versus parents abandoning chicks)
3. Record changes in the timing of breeding (e.g. arrival date, fledging date) and how this is affected by environmental conditions
We have partnered Zooniverse to develop a citizen science platform to help us turn our millions of photos into quantifiable data. This includes K-12 educational material for classrooms.
Publications: (# indicates student author)