King Penguins: A population of Olympic divers
- Ethan Aitchison
- Mar 22, 2023
- 3 min read
By: Ethan Aitchison
If you have ever thought about the transition from secondary to post-secondary school and everything someone must do to be prepared, then what do you think king penguins must do to prepare for their life at sea? For king penguins, there is a pivotal moment in their life when their land-based existence must transition to a life in the ocean so that they can forage for food and care for themselves. Juvenile king penguins must be able to find areas of high prey abundance but also develop diving abilities to be able to hunt and capture prey in an effective and efficient way. Their lifestyle involves a lot of swimming and exercise, which is very energetically expensive. Therefore, if their diving and foraging abilities are not effective enough in catching prey, they will not be able to survive. Manfred Enstipp and their team of researchers from Strasbourg University in France investigated different parameters surrounding king penguins’ diving abilities and compared them between juveniles and adults to see how they adapt to life in the ocean.
The team measured three different diving parameters between juvenile and adults using tracking devices. The first parameter they measured was how dive depth impacted the diving performance between the two groups. They also studied how diving performance changes with time in juveniles from their first month to their fourth month at sea. Finally, they also investigated how diving performance and foraging changes between seasons for both groups. They measured these three characteristics in an effort to compare diving abilities between adults and juveniles and determine if there even is a difference once they begin their life in the ocean.
The team found that all diving parameters were significantly different between the juvenile and adult groups, indicating that adults were much more proficient in diving compared to juveniles since their dive depth, dive duration, time spent at the lowest depths, diving efficiency and number of foraging attempts were all greater in adults. Time spent between dives was the only parameter higher in juveniles which indicated they required more rest between dives. Comparing these parameters between juveniles in their first and fourth month at sea also showed significant increases after three months. The drastic change over three months illustrates that juveniles go through lots of learning and development once they are at sea, and they do not develop fully on land before making the transition. Finally, they found that between seasons adults dived at deeper depths and for greater amounts of time, and for juveniles in their first five months their dive depths rarely went lower than a hundred meters. The fact that juveniles and adults occupy different parts of the ocean could indicate that they forage for different sources of food. Foraging for different food sources can be advantageous since juveniles and adults aren’t competing for the same resources. Diving efficiency was also significantly higher in adults which indicates that in order to forage at lower depths, a higher diving efficiency is required for the energetic payoff to be worth it.
Overall king penguins are magnificent divers that in their first year can already dive up to depths of a hundred meters. Although juveniles demonstrate inferior diving capacities and techniques compared to their adult counterparts, they can still forage for food and dive proficiently to care for themselves without any prior experience in the sea. Even though their diving isn’t perfect to start, it only takes the juveniles five months to be able to double their dive depth and improve all their foraging abilities to match that of an adult king penguin. Next time you are worried about the next big stage in your life or what you must do to prepare; you can look at the lifestyle of a king penguin and see how quickly life can adapt to meet any challenge.
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