Penguin plasticity: marine life-style versatility in Fiordland penguins/tawaki

HOUSTON, DAVID; GARCÍA BORBOROGLU, PABLO; MATTERN, THOMAS; ELLENBERG, URSULA; PUTZ, KLEMENS; LONG, ROBIN; SEDDON, PHIL

Dunedin

Congreso; International Penguin Congress; 2019

University of Otago

The enigmatic Fiordland penguin, or tawaki, remain one of the least known penguin species. Their population is abut 3,000 pairs and they breed along a stretch of only 500 km of coastline in New Zealand?s rugged and inaccessible southwest. Despite their limited distribution, tawaki occupy remarkably diverse marine habitats. In 2014, the Tawaki Project set out to study the penguins? ecology across their breeding range. We examined foraging behavior during and outside of the breeding season at three sites representative of the species? varied marine habitats. Over the course of five years, we documented the impact of El Niño on foraging range and breeding success, quantified the impact of a stoat incursion, and tracked extreme long-distance movements in the non-breeding period. These data paint an intriguing picture of a crested penguin species that lives outside the zone occupied by other crested penguin species (subtropical instead of sub-Antarctic waters). Instead, tawaki have established themselves in a variety of ecological niches, adaptability that might enhance the species? resilience to environmental change