Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of juvenile survival in emperor penguins
2025
Le Scornec, Ewen | Allain, Jimmy | Bardon, Gaël | Barracho, Téo | Chatelain, Nicolas | Delord, Karine | Filippi, Dominique | Ribout, Cécile | Le Bohec, Céline | Barbraud, Christophe | Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé - UMR 7372 (CEBC) ; La Rochelle Université (ULR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE) | Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien (IPHC) ; Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA) Mulhouse - Colmar (Université de Haute-Alsace (UHA))-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) | Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM) | Canada Research Chair in Polar and Boreal Ecology ; Université de Moncton | Sextant Technology Ltd ; Sextant Technology Ltd | Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE) ; École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) ; Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD [Occitanie])-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier ; Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry (UMPV)
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Show more [+] Less [-]English. Our understanding of demographic processes is mainly based on the analysis of the adult components of populations. However, juvenile survival is decisive for recruitment, and therefore for the dynamics of populations. Our study aims at understanding the environmental determinants of juvenile survival in the emperor penguin, a species for which this critical phase is poorly known. We used capture-mark-recapture models to leverage 13-years of electronic monitoring of birds tagged as fledglings at Pointe Géologie, Adélie Land. Emperor penguin juvenile survival showed very high interannual variability (0.08 to 0.48), a pattern no longer observed in immatures and adults. Furthermore, we emphasized the importance of body mass on juvenile survival, and which was tightly associated with sea ice extent during the chick rearing period. We also showed that oceanographic conditions (width of the polar front) during the first weeks after fledging are an important predictor of juvenile survival. Our results suggest that the conditions of accessibility and abundance of food resources during this phase of learning to swim and dive play a crucial role in the survival of young penguins. Finally, our study provides new insights into sex-specific differences in survival in this species, which seems to emerge only in adulthood.
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