Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 26 Issue 03

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Volume 26, No. 3
Pages 207 - 209

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A Nonmarine Source of Variability in Adélie Penguin Demography

By William R. Fraser , Donna L. Patterson-Fraser, Christine A. Ribic, Oscar Schofield , and Hugh Ducklow  
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First Paragraph

A primary research objective of the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) program has been to identify and understand the factors that regulate the demography of Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). In this context, our work has been focused on variability in the marine environment on which this species depends for virtually all aspects of its life history (Ainley, 2002). As we show here, however, there are patterns evident in the population dynamics of Adélie penguins that are better explained by variability in breeding habitat quality rather than by variability in the marine system. Interactions between the geomorphology of the terrestrial environment that, in turn, affect patterns of snow deposition, drive breeding habitat quality.

Citation

Fraser, W.R., D.L. Patterson-Fraser, C.A. Ribic, O. Schofield, and H. Ducklow. 2013. A nonmarine source of variability in Adélie penguin demography. Oceanography 26(3):207–209, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.64.

References
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