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Adélie Antoine, Sara Labrousse, Pauline Goulet, Mathilde Chevallay, Joris Laborie, Baptiste Picard, Christophe Guinet, David Nerini, Jean-Benoît Charrassin, Karine Heerah. (2023). Beneath the Antarctic sea-ice: Fine-scale analysis of Weddell seal (Leptonychotes weddellii) behavior and predator–prey interactions, using micro-sonar data in Terre Adélie (Vol. 13).
Abstract: Lactation is the most energy-demanding event in mammals' reproduction. In pinnipeds, females are the only food providers to the young and have developed numerous behavioral and physiological lactation strategies, from capital-breeding to income-breeding. Lactating females' fine-scale foraging strategy, and precise understanding of how females supplement their pup's needs as well as their own are important to understand the species' ecology and energetic balance. Polar pinnipeds, inhabiting extreme environments, are sensitive to climate change and variability, understanding their constraints and foraging strategy during lactation is therefore important. In 2019, three sonar tags were deployed on lactating Weddell seals in Terre Adélie (East Antarctica) for 7 days, to study fine-scale predator–prey interactions. Feeding activity was mostly benthic, reduced, central-placed, and spatially limited. Females spent most of their time hauled-out. A total of 331 prey capture attempts (PrCAs) were recorded using triaxial acceleration data, with 125 prey identified on echograms (5 cm, acoustic size). All PrCAs occurred on the seafloor, shallower than usual records (mean depth of 88 m, vs 280 m after their molt). We also found that they only fed in three of the five identified dive shapes, during the ascent or throughout the dive. Half of the prey were reactive to the seal's approach, either leaving the seafloor, or escaping just above the seafloor, suggesting that the seals hunt by chasing them from the seabed. Seals continuously scanned the area during the approach phase, evoking opportunistic foraging. Our results provide additional evidence that Weddell seal forage during lactation, displaying a mix of capital-breeding and income-breeding strategies during this period of physiological stress. This work sheds light on previously unexplored aspects of their foraging behavior, such as shallow water environments, targeting benthic prey, generally focusing on single prey rather than schools, and evidence of visual scanning through observed head movements.
Keywords: bio-logging diving foraging behavior predator–prey interaction sonar tags Weddell seal
Programme: 1182
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Antoine A., Johnson M.; Labrousse S., Goulet P., Chevallay M., Laborie B., Picard B., Guinet C., Nerini D., Charrassin J.-b., Heerah K. (2023). Beneath the Antarctic sea-ice: Fine-scale analysis of Weddell seal behavior and predator-prey interactions, using micro-sonar data in Terre Adélie..
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Anne Cillard, Tatiana Fuentes Rodriguez, Jean-Patrice Robin, Pierre Bize, Antoine Stier, Vincent A. Viblanc. (2023). Sharing your snack: unusual observation of a chick–chick feeding occurrence in colonial king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) (Vol. 160).
Abstract: Abstract King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are colonial seabirds presenting an extraordinary breeding cycle. Parents take over 14 months to raise a single chick to independence, upon which fledglings depart at sea for more than a year. Juveniles often return to the colony within the three austral summers following departure, and before the age of first reproduction (around 5–6 years old), possibly to acquire the essential skills involved in breeding. Little to nothing is known on the acquisition of parental behaviour. Here, we report an anecdotal, yet highly unusual, observation of chick–chick feeding behaviour in this species. The behaviour is highly unusual in that two non-sibling chicks, not yet independent, and hatched at different times (early and late) of the same breeding season were observed, the older chick feeding the younger one. Whereas alloparental feeding is known to occur in this species, this is the first reported observation of a chick–chick feeding event. This unusual behaviour raises the question of whether the early social environment plays a role in the acquisition of essential parenting skills in this species.
Keywords: allofeeding chick feeding food sharing learning parental care penguin seabird
Programme: 119
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Stier A., Viblanc V., Kauffmann M., Pardonnet S., Gineste B., Robin Jp. & Bize P. (2023). ‘Ticks in paradise’ : effets de l’éradication des ectoparasites chez le manchot royal durant la reproduction à terre.
Abstract: Les milieux polaires et subpolaires ne sont pas dépourvus de parasites. Chez les manchots royaux, les ectoparasites tels que les tiques (Ixodes uriae) sont suspectés d’avoir des effets marqués sur la santé et le succès reproducteur des adultes. En utilisant un traitement expérimental réduisant drastiquement l’abondance d’ectoparasites chez des adultes reproducteurs, nous avons pu démontrer que l’infestation par les ectoparasites induit une augmentation du stress physiologique caractérisé par des taux élevés de corticostérone (glucocorticoïde) et une situation de stress oxydant. Bien que l’éradication des ectoparasites n’ait pas d’influence notable sur le succès d’éclosion des œufs ou la survie des poussins durant l’élevage, le traitement améliore visiblement la croissance des poussins jusqu’à l’émancipation, avec des effets positifs probables sur leur survie future. Il semble donc que les ectoparasites exercent une pression de sélection naturelle non-négligeable chez le manchot royal.
Programme: 119
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Noiret A., Viblanc V., Bocquet C., Lemmonier C., Lewden A., Robin Jp., Bize P. &Amp; Stier A. (2023). HotPenguin: stress thermique et agressivité soutiennent l’hypothèse température-agression chez le manchot royal en période de reproduction.
Abstract: Les endothermes polaires et subpolaires, adaptés à un climat froid, pourraient se révéler particulièrement sensibles au stress thermique dans un contexte de réchauffement global. L'hypothèse température-agression – qui propose un lien causal entre températures ambiantes élevées et motivation agressive – pourrait accentuer le stress thermique. Essentiellement étudiée pour des raisons socio-économiques, l’hypothèse est peu investiguée chez les espèces sauvages. L’étude de manchots royaux en période de reproduction (n= 85, Crozet), a permis de mettre en évidence des relations positives entre paramètres climatiques (température, radiation solaire), température sous-cutanée, indicateurs comportementaux de stress thermique (halètement, écartement des ailerons) et agressivité envers les congénères. Nos résultats ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives écologiques pour l'hypothèse température-agression, et encouragent l'étude du stress thermique dans les écosystèmes polaires.
Programme: 119
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Tracey L. Hammer, Pierre Bize, Benoit Gineste, Jean-Patrice Robin, René Groscolas, Vincent A. Viblanc. (2023). Disentangling the “many-eyes”, “dilution effect”, “selfish herd”, and “distracted prey” hypotheses in shaping alert and flight initiation distance in a colonial seabird (Vol. 210).
Abstract: Group living is thought to have important antipredator benefits for animals, owing to the mechanisms of shared vigilance (“many-eyes” hypothesis), risk dilution (“dilution effect” hypothesis), and relative safety in the center of the group (“selfish herd” hypothesis). However, it can also incur costs since social stimuli, such as conspecific aggression, may distract individuals from anti-predator behavior (“distracted prey” hypothesis). We simultaneously evaluated how these four different hypotheses shape anti-predator behaviors of breeding king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), which aggregate into large colonies, experience frequent aggressive social interactions, and are regularly exposed to predation by giant petrels (Macronectes sp.) and brown skuas (Catharacta loonbergi) when breeding on land. We approached 200 incubating penguins at four different periods of the breeding season across a range of overall increasing colony densities. We measured the distance at which focal birds detected the approaching threat (alert distance: AD), whether birds decided to flee or not, and the distance of flight initiation (flight initiation distance: FID, viz. the bird attempting to walk away with its egg on its feet). We quantified relative local neighbor density, centrality within the colony (rank), and the number of aggressions the focal bird emitted towards neighbors during the approach. We found that birds engaged in aggressive conflicts with neighbors were less likely to flee, and that increasing relative local neighbor density at low and medium overall colony density resulted in a decrease in bird AD, both supporting the “distracted prey” hypothesis. However, at maximal overall colony density, increasing relative local neighbor density resulted in longer AD, supporting the “many-eyes” hypothesis. We found no support for the “dilution effect” and “selfish herd” hypotheses, and no effects of any hypothesis on FID.
Keywords: Antipredator behaviour Escape flight distance Optimal escape decisions Predation risk Predator-prey decision Risk taking
Programme: 119
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Desoubeaux G., Boulinier T., Jorry T., Bocquet C., Lemonnier C., Robin J-p., Bize P., Baron J., Chesnay A., Bailly E., Stier A., Viblanc V.A. (2023). Fungal contamination in the environment of penguin communities in the French Southern Territories.
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Lemonnier C., Bize P., Stier A., Cillard A., Montblanc M., Robin J-p., Handrich Y., Bost C-a., Viblanc V. (2023). Compensating for harsh conditions at sea: plasticity of king penguin foraging strategies facing an experimental increase in workload.
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Lemonnier C., Schull Q., Stier A., Boonstra R., Delahanty B., Lefol E., Durand L., Pardonnet S., Robin Jp., Criscuolo F., Bize P., Viblanc Va. (2023). Adaptive phenotypic programming to social density in king penguins.
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Federico Scoto, Gianluca Pappaccogli, Mauro Mazzola, Antonio Donateo, Roberto Salzano, Matteo Monzali, Fabrizio de Blasi, Catherine Larose, Jean-Charles Gallet, Stefano Decesari, Andrea Spolaor. (2023). Automated observation of physical snowpack properties in Ny-Ålesund (Vol. 11).
Abstract: The snow season in the Svalbard archipelago generally lasts 6–10 months a year and significantly impacts the regional climate, glaciers mass balance, permafrost thermal regime and ecology. Due to the lack of long-term continuous snowpack physical data, it is still challenging for the numerical snow physics models to simulate multi-layer snowpack evolution, especially for remote Arctic areas. To fill this gap, in November 2020, an automated nivometric station (ANS) was installed ∼1 km Southwest from the settlement of Ny-Ålesund (Spitzbergen, Svalbard), in a flat area over the lowland tundra. It automatically provides continuous snow data, including NIR images of the fractional snow-cover area (fSCA), snow depth (SD), internal snow temperature and liquid water content (LWC) profiles at different depths with a 10 min time resolution. Here we present the first-year record of automatic snow preliminary measurements collected between November 2020 and July 2021 together with weekly manual observations for comparison. The snow season at the ANS site lasted for 225 days with an annual net accumulation of 117 cm (392 mm of water equivalent). The LWC in the snowpack was generally low (<4%) during wintertime, nevertheless, we observed three snow-melting events between November and February 2021 and one in June 2021, connected with positive temperature and rain on snow events (ROS). In view of the foreseen future developments, the ANS is the first automated, comprehensive snowpack monitoring system in Ny-Ålesund measuring key essential climate variables needed to understand the seasonal evolution of the snow cover on land.
Programme: 1192
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