Climate change and penguin populations: what we know and what we can learn
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v14i1.8774Keywords:
climate change, penguins, antartica, global warming, environment, conservationAbstract
Climate change is a complex concept that poses many severe threats to life on Earth as we know it. The
environment is at risk of warming and more extreme weather events that will be detrimental too many organisms and forms of life. The polar regions, including the Arctic and Antarctica, are especially in jeopardy as they see faster warming rates than many other regions of the planet. This is causing peril upon many organisms and ecosystems in these areas, including penguins. While penguins are not the only organisms at risk of endangerment or extinction as a result of climate change, they are affected by it in uniquely complex ways depending on the species and their geographic location. Studying these differences and understanding how they are responding to changes in their environments is critical to avoid species endangerment and extinction. Furthermore, limiting further environmental damage and pushing for successful conservation efforts in penguin populations will aid in bringing stability to their ecosystems and the other species that exist in them.
Downloads
References or Bibliography
Evidence - NASA Science. (n.d.). https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/evidence/
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2023). Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis:
Working Group I Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Penguins – Australian Antarctic Program. (2022, September 12). https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-
antarctica/animals/penguins/#:~:text=Penguins%20are%20only%20found%20in,live%20on%20sub%2DAntarctic%
islands.
Robinson S. A. (2022). Climate change and extreme events are changing the biology of Polar Regions. Global
change biology, 28(20), 5861–5864. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16309
Antarctica penguins: Pictures, facts and information. (n.d.). https://www.antarcticaguide.com/antarctica-wildlife-
/antarctica-penguins
Hong, S. Y., Gal, J. K., Lee, B. Y., Son, W. J., Jung, J. W., La, H. S., Shin, K. H., Kim, J. H., & Ha, S. Y. (2021).
Regional Differences in the Diets of Adélie and Emperor Penguins in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Animals : an open
access journal from MDPI, 11(9), 2681. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11092681
Saenz, B. T., Ainley, D. G., Daly, K. L., Ballard, G., Conlisk, E., Elrod, M. L., & Kim, S. L. (2020). Drivers of
concentrated predation in an Antarctic marginal-ice-zone food web. Scientific reports, 10(1), 7282.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63875-y
Trivelpiece, W. Z., Hinke, J. T., Miller, A. K., Reiss, C. S., Trivelpiece, S. G., & Watters, G. M. (2011). Variability
in krill biomass links harvesting and climate warming to penguin population changes in Antarctica. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(18), 7625–7628.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1016560108
Michael, K., Suberg, L. A., Wessels, W., Kawaguchi, S., & Meyer, B. (2021). Facing Southern Ocean warming:
Temperature effects on whole animal performance of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). Zoology (Jena,
Germany), 146, 125910. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.zool.2021.125910
Maccapan, D., Careddu, G., Calizza, E., Sporta Caputi, S., Rossi, L., & Costantini, M. L. (2023). Effects of Sea-
Ice Persistence on the Diet of Adélie Penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae) Chicks and the Trophic Differences between
Chicks and Adults in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Biology, 12(5), 708. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology12050708
Savoca, M. S., Kumar, M., Sylvester, Z., Czapanskiy, M. F., Meyer, B., Goldbogen, J. A., & Brooks, C. M.
(2024). Whale recovery and the emerging human-wildlife conflict over Antarctic krill. Nature
communications, 15(1), 7708. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51954-x
Watanabe, Y. Y., Ito, K., Kokubun, N., & Takahashi, A. (2020). Foraging behavior links sea ice to breeding
success in Antarctic penguins. Science advances, 6(26), eaba4828. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba4828
Salmerón, N., Belle, S., Cruz, F. S., Alegria, N., Finger, J. V. G., Corá, D. H., Petry, M. V., Hernández, C.,
Cárdenas, C. A., & Krüger, L. (2023). Contrasting environmental conditions precluded lower availability of
Antarctic krill affecting breeding chinstrap penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula. Scientific reports, 13(1), 5265.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-32352-7
Le Bohec, C., Durant, J. M., Gauthier-Clerc, M., Stenseth, N. C., Park, Y. H., Pradel, R., Grémillet, D., Gendner,
J. P., & Le Maho, Y. (2008). King penguin population threatened by Southern Ocean warming. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(7), 2493–2497.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0712031105
Cristofari, R., Liu, X., Bonadonna, F. et al. Climate-driven range shifts of the king penguin in a fragmented
ecosystem. Nature Clim Change 8, 245–251 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0084-2
Cimino, M. A. et al. Projected asymmetric response of Adélie penguins to Antarctic
climate change. Sci. Rep. 6, 28785; doi: 10.1038/srep28785 (2016).
Waters, H. (2023, February 23). Follow Adélie Penguins on their journey into the long polar night. Audubon.
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/spring-2019/follow-adelie-penguins-their-journey-long-polar
Ralls, E. (2024, January 12). Adélie penguins use sea ice to migrate thousands of miles each year. Earth.com.
https://www.earth.com/news/adelie-penguins-use-sea-ice-to-migrate-thousands-of-miles-each-year/
Fretwell, P.T., Boutet, A. & Ratcliffe, N. Record low 2022 Antarctic sea ice led to catastrophic breeding failure
of emperor penguins. Commun Earth Environ 4, 273 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00927-x
Strickland, A. (2022, October 29). Antarctica’s emperor penguins at risk of extinction due to the climate crisis.
cnn.com. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/29/world/emperor-penguins-threatened-species-climate-scn/index.html
Jenouvrier, S., Che-Castaldo, J., Wolf, S., Holland, M., Labrousse, S., LaRue, M., Wienecke, B., Fretwell, P.,
Barbraud, C., Greenwald, N., Stroeve, J., & Trathan, P. N. (2021). The call of the emperor penguin: Legal responses
to species threatened by climate change. Global change biology, 27(20), 5008–5029.
https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15806
Trathan, P. N., García-Borboroglu, P., Boersma, D., Bost, C. A., Crawford, R. J., Crossin, G. T., Cuthbert, R. J.,
Dann, P., Davis, L. S., De La Puente, S., Ellenberg, U., Lynch, H. J., Mattern, T., Pütz, K., Seddon, P. J., Trivelpiece,
W., & Wienecke, B. (2015). Pollution, habitat loss, fishing, and climate change as critical threats to
penguins. Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology, 29(1), 31–41.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12349
Santos, M. A., Carromeu-Santos, A., Quina, A. S., Antunes, M. A., Kristensen, T. N., Santos, M., Matos, M.,
Fragata, I., & Simões, P. (2024). Experimental Evolution in a Warming World: The Omics Era. Molecular biology
and evolution, 41(8), msae148. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msae148
Hoffmann, A., Sgrò, C. Climate change and evolutionary adaptation. Nature 470, 479–485 (2011).
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09670
Pirri, F., Ometto, L., Fuselli, S., Fernandes, F. A. N., Ancona, L., Perta, N., Di Marino, D., Le Bohec, C., Zane,
L., & Trucchi, E. (2022). Selection-driven adaptation to the extreme Antarctic environment in the Emperor
penguin. Heredity, 129(6), 317–326. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00564-8
Changing Life: Ocean - Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition. (n.d.). Antarctic and Southern Ocean
Coalition. https://www.asoc.org/learn/changing-life-ocean/
Galápagos Conservancy. (2022, November 30). Safeguarding Galápagos Penguins from Climate Change |
Galápagos Conservancy. https://www.galapagos.org/projects/saving-species/safeguarding-galapagos-penguins-
from-climate-change/?t
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Copyright (c) 2025 Joel Kim; Yujin Lee, Stephanie Major

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright holder(s) granted JSR a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distriute & display this article.


