An Emperor Penguin Population Estimate: The First Global, Synoptic Survey of a Species from Space

被引:210
作者
Fretwell, Peter T. [1 ]
LaRue, Michelle A. [2 ]
Morin, Paul [2 ]
Kooyman, Gerald L. [3 ]
Wienecke, Barbara [4 ]
Ratcliffe, Norman [1 ]
Fox, Adrian J. [1 ]
Fleming, Andrew H. [1 ]
Porter, Claire [2 ]
Trathan, Phil N. [1 ]
机构
[1] British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge CB3 0ET, England
[2] Univ Minnesota, Polar Geospatial Ctr, Minneapolis, MN USA
[3] Univ Calif San Diego, Scripps Inst Oceanog, La Jolla, CA 92093 USA
[4] Australian Antarctic Div, Hobart, Tas, Australia
来源
PLOS ONE | 2012年 / 7卷 / 04期
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
CLIMATE; RESPONSES; COLONIES;
D O I
10.1371/journal.pone.0033751
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Our aim was to estimate the population of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes fosteri) using a single synoptic survey. We examined the whole continental coastline of Antarctica using a combination of medium resolution and Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery to identify emperor penguin colony locations. Where colonies were identified, VHR imagery was obtained in the 2009 breeding season. The remotely-sensed images were then analysed using a supervised classification method to separate penguins from snow, shadow and guano. Actual counts of penguins from eleven ground truthing sites were used to convert these classified areas into numbers of penguins using a robust regression algorithm. We found four new colonies and confirmed the location of three previously suspected sites giving a total number of emperor penguin breeding colonies of 46. We estimated the breeding population of emperor penguins at each colony during 2009 and provide a population estimate of similar to 238,000 breeding pairs (compared with the last previously published count of 135,000-175,000 pairs). Based on published values of the relationship between breeders and non-breeders, this translates to a total population of similar to 595,000 adult birds. There is a growing consensus in the literature that global and regional emperor penguin populations will be affected by changing climate, a driver thought to be critical to their future survival. However, a complete understanding is severely limited by the lack of detailed knowledge about much of their ecology, and importantly a poor understanding of their total breeding population. To address the second of these issues, our work now provides a comprehensive estimate of the total breeding population that can be used in future population models and will provide a baseline for long-term research.
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页数:11
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