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Proximity of krill and salps in an Antarctic coastal ecosystem: evidence from penguin-mounted cameras

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Abstract

Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and salps (mainly Salpa thompsoni) are main components of Southern Ocean ecosystem, but little is known about their coastal distribution at a fine scale (<1 km). We deployed miniaturised cameras on breeding chinstrap (n = 9 birds) and gentoo penguins (n = 9 birds) in the Antarctic Peninsula region and obtained 2,333 krill images, 93 salp images and 609 sea floor images from 1,843 dives. 51.2 % of penguin dives that had salps present in the images occurred near the dives with krill images (within 5 min). The vertical distribution of salp images showed overlap with the upper depth zone of krill images. While 16.3 % of dives with krill images were associated in time with the sea floor, only 1.2 % of dives with salp images did. These results revealed close proximity between krill and salps within the penguin’s foraging range in an Antarctic coastal ecosystem. These results also imply that krill patches were common in both pelagic and benthic habitat, whereas salps were common mainly in pelagic habitat. If the effects of deployments are similar between the years or regions, inter-annual or regional comparison using the penguin-mounted camera will be valid for characterising prey environment in the penguin foraging area.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr S.-H. Kang and all members of the King Sejong Station, Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) for logistic supports in the field. Dr. H.-C. Shin provided the basis for our fieldwork. Drs. I.-Y. Ahn and E. J. Choy helped us to conduct the fieldwork. We are grateful to Dr L. Emmerson, for reviewing the manuscript, providing helpful comments and improving the English. We also thank an anonymous reviewer who kindly provided suggestion for improving the English. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Research Fellowship for Young Scientists to N.K., JSPS research Grant 20310016 to A.T. and the programme “Bio-logging Science, The University of Tokyo (UT-BLS)” led by Drs N. Miyazaki and K. Sato. A research Grant PE11030: Studies on biodiversity and changing ecosystems in King George Island, Antarctica funded by the KOPRI provided support for this work. This study was conducted under permits issued by the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Institute of Polar Research, 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, 190-8515, Japan

    Nobuo Kokubun & Akinori Takahashi

  2. Australian Antarctic Division, 203 Channel highway, Kingston, TAS, 7050, Australia

    Nobuo Kokubun

  3. Korea Polar Research Institute, Songdo Techno Park, 7-50 Songdo-dong, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, 406-840, Korea

    Jeong-Hoon Kim

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  1. Nobuo Kokubun
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  2. Jeong-Hoon Kim
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  3. Akinori Takahashi
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Correspondence to Nobuo Kokubun.

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Kokubun, N., Kim, JH. & Takahashi, A. Proximity of krill and salps in an Antarctic coastal ecosystem: evidence from penguin-mounted cameras. Polar Biol 36, 1857–1864 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-013-1400-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-013-1400-y

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