Evidence of age-related improvement in the foraging efficiency of Adélie penguins

Age variation in reproductive performance is well-documented but the mechanisms underlying this variation remain unclear. Foraging efficiency is likely to be a key source of demographic variation as it determines the amount of energy that can be invested in fitness-related activities. Evidence of ag...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2019-03, Vol.9 (1), p.3375-3375, Article 3375
Main Authors: Lescroël, Amélie, Ballard, Grant, Massaro, Melanie, Dugger, Katie, Jennings, Scott, Pollard, Annie, Porzig, Elizabeth, Schmidt, Annie, Varsani, Arvind, Grémillet, David, Ainley, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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Age
Aging
Animal behavior
Aquatic birds
Efficiency
Environmental Sciences
Fitness
Humanities and Social Sciences
Longitudinal studies
multidisciplinary
Phenotypes
Pygoscelis adeliae
Reproduction
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Senescence
Variation
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Summary:Age variation in reproductive performance is well-documented but the mechanisms underlying this variation remain unclear. Foraging efficiency is likely to be a key source of demographic variation as it determines the amount of energy that can be invested in fitness-related activities. Evidence of age-related changes in the foraging efficiency of adult seabirds is scarce and inconsistent. We investigated the effects of age on the foraging efficiency of breeding Adélie penguins, a relatively short-lived seabird species, in order to gain a broader perspective on the processes driving variation in ageing rates. We found support for a positive effect of age, either linear or levelling off at old ages, on both our proxies for daily catch rate and catch per unit effort. Across all age classes, males were more performant foragers than females. We found no strong evidence for differing ageing patterns between sexes or individual quality levels, and no evidence for senescence. We infer that continuous individual improvement could be responsible for a larger amount of the variation in foraging efficiency with age at our study site, compared with selective disappearance of underperforming phenotypes. The different results reported by other studies highlight the need to conduct longitudinal studies across a range of species in different environments.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-39814-x