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Inter-colony and sex differences in the effects of parental body condition and foraging effort on the brood growth of Adélie penguins

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Abstract

Among colonies with different foraging distances, central-place-foraging seabirds may change their foraging and reproductive efforts. We compared the body condition, meal frequency, and diving behavior of male and female Adélie penguins at two locations: Dumont d'Urville, where there was little sea ice and they foraged in open waters far from the colony; and Syowa, where there was heavy, fast sea ice and they foraged in ice cracks close to the colony. The parental mass decrease rate during the chick-rearing period was similar between colonies and between sexes. A large individual variation in meal frequency positively affected the brood growth rate, but daily underwater time did not. A weak but significant positive effect of body condition on brood growth rate was found only in males at Syowa. It was suggested that males work with better body condition than females. We propose the hypothesis that the regional difference in the distance to the feeding sites and the sex difference in body energy reserve might constrain the capacity to regulate reproductive effort.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Y. Miyamoto, H. Ichikawa, Y. Niizuma, D. Rodary, and W. Bonreau for field assistance, B. Leroy and S. Ushio for arranging satellite image data of sea-ice distribution, M. Takagi and two anonymous referees for invaluable comments on the manuscript. Logistical and financial support were provided by National Institute of Polar Research, Institut Français pour la Recherche et la Technologie Polaires and Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises. We especially thank members of JARE 37 and 38 at Syowa, and those of Missions 46 and 47 at DDU for kind assistance and Prof. Y. Naito for his help in all phases of the research.

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  1. Yutaka Watanuki

    Present address: Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 3-1-1 Minatocho, Hakodate 041-8611, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Animal Ecology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-8589, Japan

    Yutaka Watanuki

  2. Department of Polar Science, Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Tokyo, Japan

    Akinori Takahashi

  3. National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan

    Katsufumi Sato & Akiko Kato

  4. Centre d'Ecologie et de Physiologie Energetiques, CNRS, Strasbourg, France

    Charles A. Bost

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  1. Yutaka Watanuki
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  2. Akinori Takahashi
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  5. Charles A. Bost
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Correspondence to Yutaka Watanuki.

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Watanuki, Y., Takahashi, A., Sato, K. et al. Inter-colony and sex differences in the effects of parental body condition and foraging effort on the brood growth of Adélie penguins. J Ethol 22, 91–98 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-003-0108-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10164-003-0108-9

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