IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v469y2011i7329d10.1038_nature09630.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reliability of flipper-banded penguins as indicators of climate change

Author

Listed:
  • Claire Saraux

    (Université de Strasbourg, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, France
    CNRS, UMR7178, 67037 Strasbourg, France
    Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
    AgroParisTech, ENGREF, 19 avenue du Maine, F-75732 Paris, France)

  • Céline Le Bohec

    (Université de Strasbourg, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, France
    CNRS, UMR7178, 67037 Strasbourg, France
    Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway)

  • Joël M. Durant

    (Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway)

  • Vincent A. Viblanc

    (Université de Strasbourg, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, France
    CNRS, UMR7178, 67037 Strasbourg, France)

  • Michel Gauthier-Clerc

    (Centre de Recherche de la Tour du Valat, Le Sambuc, 13200 Arles, France)

  • David Beaune

    (Université de Strasbourg, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, France
    CNRS, UMR7178, 67037 Strasbourg, France)

  • Young-Hyang Park

    (USM 0402/LOCEAN, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 75231 Paris, France)

  • Nigel G. Yoccoz

    (University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway)

  • Nils C. Stenseth

    (Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, PO Box 1066, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
    Institute of Marine Research, Flødevigen Marine Research Station, N-4817 His, Norway)

  • Yvon Le Maho

    (Université de Strasbourg, Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, 23 rue Becquerel, 67087 Strasbourg, France
    CNRS, UMR7178, 67037 Strasbourg, France)

Abstract

Flipper-banding a threat to penguins For decades, the standard practice for studying penguins — well established as bellwethers of climate change — has been to tag the birds with flipper bands. It is a controversial technique, however, with conflicting reports on whether the tags themselves can alter the birds' behaviour. Now, the results of a ten-year study of free-ranging king penguins provide convincing evidence that banding is harmful. Banded birds had a markedly lower survival rate, with every major life-history trait affected, and they were more affected by climate variation than birds without bands. As well as raising doubts over marine ecosystem data based on banding, this work has implications for the ethics of animal tagging.

Suggested Citation

  • Claire Saraux & Céline Le Bohec & Joël M. Durant & Vincent A. Viblanc & Michel Gauthier-Clerc & David Beaune & Young-Hyang Park & Nigel G. Yoccoz & Nils C. Stenseth & Yvon Le Maho, 2011. "Reliability of flipper-banded penguins as indicators of climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 469(7329), pages 203-206, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:469:y:2011:i:7329:d:10.1038_nature09630
    DOI: 10.1038/nature09630
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09630
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature09630?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mollie E Brooks & Michael W McCoy & Benjamin M Bolker, 2013. "A Method for Detecting Positive Growth Autocorrelation without Marking Individuals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-8, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:469:y:2011:i:7329:d:10.1038_nature09630. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.