USAP-DC

Part 1: Non-technical description Polar regions are experiencing some of the most dramatic effects of climate change resulting in large-scale changes in sea ice cover. Despite this, there are relatively few long-term studies on polar species that evaluate the full scope of these effects. Over the last two decades, this team has conducted globally unique demographic studies of Adélie penguins in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, to explore several potential mechanisms for population change. This five-year project will use penguin-borne sensors to evaluate foraging conditions and behavior and environmental conditions on early life stages of Adélie penguins. Results will help to better understand population dynamics and how populations might respond to future environmental change. To promote STEM literacy, education and public outreach efforts will include multiple activities. The PenguinCam and PenguinScience.com website (impacts of >1 million hits per month and use by >300 classrooms/~10,000 students) will be continued. Each field season will also have ‘Live From the Penguins’ Skype calls to classes (~120/season). Classroom-ready activities that are aligned with Next Generation Science Standards will be developed with media products and science journal papers translated to grade 5-8 literacy level. The project will also train early career scientists, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and post-graduate interns. Finally, in partnership with an Environmental Leadership Program, the team will host 2-year Roger Arliner Young Conservation Fellow, which is a program designed to increase opportunities for recent college graduates of color to learn about, engage with, and enter the environmental conservation sector. Part II: Technical description: Leveraging 25 years of data on marked individuals from two Adélie penguin colonies in the Ross Sea, combined with new biologging tags that track detailed penguin foraging efforts and environmental conditions, researchers will accomplish three major goals: 1) assess the quality of natal conditions by determining how environmental conditions, relative prey availability, and diet composition influence parental foraging behavior, chick provisioning, and fledging mass; 2) determine the spatial distribution and foraging behavior of juvenile Adélie penguins and the relative influence of natal versus post-fledging environmental conditions on their survival; and 3) determine the role of natal and post-fledging conditions in shaping individual life history traits and colony growth. Data from several types of penguin-borne biologging devices will be used to provide multiple lines of evidence for how early-life conditions and penguin behavior relate to penguin energetics and population size. This study is the first to integrate salinity, temperature, light level, depth, accelerometry, video loggers, and GPS data with longitudinal demographic information, providing an unprecedented ability to understand how penguins use the environment and enabling new insights from previously collected data. Changes in salinity due to increased glacial melt have important implications for sea ice formation, ocean circulation and productivity of the Southern Ocean, and potentially global temperature change. The penguin-borne sensors deployed in this study will support the NSF Office of Polar Programs priority: How does society more efficiently observe and measure the polar regions? It represents only the second study to track juvenile Adélie penguins at sea, the first in the Ross Sea region, the first with substantial sample sizes, and the first to assess juvenile survival rates directly, integrating early life factors and environmental conditions to better understand colony growth trajectories. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Person	Role
Ballard, Grant	Investigator and contact
Schmidt, Annie	Co-Investigator
Varsani, Arvind	Co-Investigator
Dugger, Katie	Co-Investigator
Orben, Rachael	Co-Investigator

Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems	Award # 1935901
Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems	Award # 1935870

USAP-1935870_1

None in the Database

Repository	Title (link)	Format(s)	Status
USAP-DC	Adelie penguin resighting data 1997-2021 from the California Avian Data Center hosted by Point Reyes Bird Observatory Conservation Science	CSV	exists

1. Jennings, S., Dugger, K. M., Ballard, G., & Ainley, D. G. (2023). Faster growth and larger size at crèche onset are associated with higher offspring survival in Adélie Penguins. Ornithology. (doi:10.1093/ornithology/ukad006)
2. Lescroël, A., Schmidt, A., Ainley, D. G., Dugger, K. M., Elrod, M., Jongsomjit, D., Morandini, V., Winquist, S., & Ballard, G. (2023). High-resolution recording of foraging behaviour over multiple annual cycles shows decline in old Adélie penguins’ performance. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290(1996). (doi:10.1098/rspb.2022.2480)
3. Fischhoff, I. R., Castellanos, A. A., Rodrigues, J. P. G. L. M., Varsani, A., & Han, B. A. (2021). Predicting the zoonotic capacity of mammals to transmit SARS-CoV-2. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1963). (doi:10.1098/rspb.2021.1651)
4. Lescroël, A., Schmidt, A., Elrod, M., Ainley, D. G., & Ballard, G. (2021). Foraging dive frequency predicts body mass gain in the Adélie penguin. Scientific Reports, 11(1). (doi:10.1038/s41598-021-02451-4)
5. Morandini, V., K.M. Dugger, A. Lescroel, A. Schmidt and G. Ballard. 2021. Maintenance of nest quality in Adélie penguins: an additional benefit to life in the center. Polar Biology (doi:10.1007/s00300-021-02894-5)
6. Jennings, S, KM Dugger, G Ballard, and DG Ainley. 2021. Effects of diet and provisioning behavior on chick growth on Adélie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). Waterbirds 44:55-67 (doi:10.1675/063.044.0105)
7. Schmidt, AE, G Ballard, A Lescroël, KM Dugger, D Jongsomjit, ML Elrod, and DG Ainley. 2021. The influence of subcolony-scale nesting habitat on reproductive success of Adélie penguins. Scientific Reports 11:15380 (doi:10.1038/s41598-021-94861-7)
8. Smith, W.O. Jr., D.G. Ainley, K.J. Heywood, and G. Ballard. 2021. New technologies aid understanding of the factors affecting Adélie penguin foraging. Pp. 26–27 in Frontiers in Ocean Observing: Documenting Ecosystems, Understanding Environmental Changes, Forecasting Hazards. E.S. Kappel, S.K. Juniper, S. Seeyave, E. Smith, and M. Visbeck, eds, A Supplement to Oceanography 34(4) (doi:10.5670/oceanog.2021.supplement.02-10.)
9. Jongsomjit, D., Lescroël, A., Schmidt, A. E., Lisovski, S., Ainley, D. G., Hines, E., Elrod, M., Dugger, K. M., & Ballard, G. (2024). Going with the floe: <scp>S</scp>ea‐ice movement affects distance and destination during <scp>A</scp>délie penguin winter movements. Ecology. Portico. (doi:10.1002/ecy.4196)
10. Morandini, V., Dugger, K. M., Schmidt, A. E., Varsani, A., Lescroël, A., Ballard, G., Lyver, P. O., Barton, K., & Ainley, D. G. (2024). Sex‐specific recruitment rates contribute to male‐biased sex ratio in Adélie penguins. Ecology and Evolution, 14(2). Portico. (doi:10.1002/ece3.10859)
11. Cox, A. M., Khor, D. J., Elrod, M. L., Lescroël, A., Ballard, G., & Schmidt, A. E. (2024). I need some space: solitary nesting Adélie penguins demonstrate an alternative breeding strategy at Cape Crozier. Polar Biology. (doi:10.1007/s00300-024-03246-9)
12. Foster-Dyer, R. T. N., Goetz, K. T., Iwata, T., Holser, R. R., Michael, S. A., Pritchard, C., Childerhouse, S., Costa, D. P., Ainley, D. G., Pinkerton, M. H., & LaRue, M. A. (2024). Prey targeted by lactating Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii) in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. Polar Biology. (doi:10.1007/s00300-024-03294-1)