Abstract
Brown Skuas (Stercorarius lonnbergi) are known to feed on other birds or eggs during the breeding season. In some cases, however, a few pairs monopolize a penguin colony, and the other skuas mainly forage in the sea. We installed automatic camera traps to monitor two groups of breeding Brown Skua pairs on King George Island: the nests of Group A were located near a Gentoo Penguin (Pygoscelis papua) colony, while those of Group B were relatively far away. From the resulting photographs, we were able to distinguish the food items that parents brought to the nest and could confirm the egg hatching date. Overall, 97.1% of the food items that group A brought to the nest were from the penguin colonies, while 94.1% of the prey items of group B were fish. Group A had a hatching date at least 8 days earlier than Group B. Our results show that a few Brown Skua pairs that bred near the penguin colony fed primarily on penguin nest contents such as eggs or chicks within their feeding territory and had earlier hatching dates. The Brown Skuas that nested close to penguin nests may have had advantages in foraging and breeding performance.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Heemin Yang, Minsu Jung, Junsu Kim, and Timothy Patrick Lynch for assistance in field work. We are grateful to overwintering members for logistical support at King Sejong Station. We thank Dr. Sjudur Hammer and an anonymous reviewer for providing constructive comments and suggestions that substantially improved the manuscript.
Funding
This research was supported by the Ecophysiology of Antarctic Terrestrial Organisms to Reveal Mechanisms of Adaptation to a Changing Environment program, funded by the Korea Polar Research Institute (PE21130) and long-term ecosystem monitoring in Antarctic Specially Protected Area no. 171 on King George Island was funded by The Korean Ministry of Environment (PG20040).
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JHK designed and funded the study and performed fieldwork at the study sites. YK analyzed data and wrote the manuscript draft. JWJ wrote the primary text. HC co-funded the study. JUK and YSO checked the photographs and filtered data. All authors contributed to the review of earlier manuscript drafts.
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This study was performed with permission from the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in accordance with the Act on Antarctic Activities and Protection of the Antarctic Environment. This study was carried out in accordance with the ‘SCAR Code of Conduct for the use of Animals for Scientific Purposes in Antarctica.’
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Kim, Y., Jung, JW., Kim, JU. et al. Dietary niche partitioning in brown skuas (Stercorarius lonnbergi) during the chick-rearing period at Narębski Point on King George Island, Antarctica. Polar Biol 45, 153–158 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02971-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-021-02971-9